This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What is in time is of a lower order than time itself: time is folded around what is in time exactly as - we read - it is folded about what is in place and in number.
William Osler, fully Sir William Osler
Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look — these the patient understands.
Care | Disease | Individual | Wisdom |
The acceptance of truth that joy and sorrow, laughter and tears are not confined to any particular time, place or people, but are universally distributed, should make us more tolerant of and more interested in the lives of others.
Acceptance | Joy | Laughter | People | Sorrow | Tears | Time | Truth | Wisdom |
Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.
High theory and mere mind-stimulation are secondary; living itself - in the real world, among people - is the essence... I hereby promise to attempt to be a mensh, a decent, caring human being. Neutrality, noncommitment, indifference have no place in life. To be fully human, we are committed to being caring, sensitive, aggressively compassionate people. Our lives are defined by how we act. We are alive because we perform just and righteous deeds, deeds of gentle loving kindness.
Deeds | Indifference | Kindness | Life | Life | Mind | Neutrality | People | Promise | Wisdom | World | Deeds |
Since the beginning of civilization we have explained our existence in terms of what we could observe... Maybe we will discover that the only true reality is a state of mind, shaped by the information we can process and contexts in which we see it. Maybe the Supreme Being we call God can best be appreciated as the power of ultimate understanding. Maybe our destination has always been to learn and grow as we approach the light of ultimate understanding. Only the context of our ability to process information changes.
Ability | Beginning | Civilization | Existence | God | Light | Mind | Power | Reality | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | God | Learn |
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
It is the same with understanding as with eyes; to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.
Darkness | Light | Size | Understanding | Wisdom |
Each truth sparkles with a light of its own, yet it always reflects some light upon another; a truth, while lighting another, springs from one, in order to penetrate another. The first truth is an abundant sense, from which all others are colored, and each particular truth, in its turn, resembles a great river that divides into an infinite number of rivulets.
George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala
Thought engenders thought. Place one idea upon paper, another will follow it, and still another, until you have written a page. You cannot fathom your mind. It is a well of thought which has no bottom. The more you draw from it, the more clear and fruitful will it be. If you neglect to think yourself, and use other people's thoughts, giving them utterance only, you will never know what you are capable of. At first your ideas may come out in lumps, homely and shapeless; but no matter; time and perseverance will arrange and polish them. Learn to think, and you will learn to write; the more you think, the better you will express your ideas.
Better | Giving | Ideas | Mind | Neglect | People | Perseverance | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Learn | Think | Thought |
Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof
Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.
Age | Beauty | Law | Light | Old age | Size | Wisdom | Worth |
The golden thread in the mind of man is the light that leads towards excellence as a human objective. If perfection is a divine attribute, excellence is a human incentive and a healthy aim, even when we fall short of the target.
Excellence | Light | Man | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | Excellence |