This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are around half a million words in the English language, but a recent statistical study of telephone speech discovered that 96 percent of all conversation over the wires consists of just 737 words.
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
Always in everything let there be reverence; with the deportment grave as when one is thinking (deeply), and with speech composed and definite. This will make the people tranquil. Pride should not be allowed to grow; the desires should not be indulged; the will should not be gratified to the full; pleasure should not be carried to excess.
Excess | Grave | People | Pleasure | Pride | Reverence | Speech | Thinking | Will |
Mary Catherwood, fully Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends.
True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.
People | Silence | Friendship |
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
Prayer is an expression of man’s inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe. It is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego affirms itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own worth and justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe.
Discovery | Dynamic | Ego | Justification | Life | Life | Man | Prayer | Self | Silence | Unique | Universe | Worth | Discovery |
There are seven marks of a wise man. The wise man does not speak before him who is greater than he in wisdom; and does not break in upon the speech of his fellow; he is not hasty to answer; he questions according to the subject matter; and answers to the point; he speaks upon the first thing first, and the last; regarding that which he has not understood he says, I do not understand it, and he acknowledges the truth.
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.
Despair | Joy | Life | Life | Music | Phenomena | Reality | Sadness | Silence |