This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.
Day | Evil | Faith | Future | God | Hope | Life | Life | Nothing | Rank | Virtue | Virtue | Will | God |
In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture from a very different direction: the attack on Darwinism mounted in recent years from a religious perspective by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.
Acceptance | Association | Atheism | Fear | God | Hope | People | Religion | Right | Superstition | Talking | Universe | Virtue | Virtue | Association | God |
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
William P. Montague, fully William Pepperell Montague
Realism holds that things known may continue to exist unaltered when they are not known, or that things may pass in and out of the cognitive relation without prejudice to their reality, or that the existence of a thing is not correlated with or dependent upon the fact that anybody experiences it, perceives it, conceives it, or is in any way aware of it.
Difficulty | Meaning | Virtue | Virtue |
I love the jocund dance, The softly breathing song, Where innocent eyes do glance, And where lisps the maiden’s tongue. I love the laughing vale, I love the echoing hill, Where mirth does never fail, And the jolly swain laughs his fill. I love the pleasant cot, I love the innocent bow’r, Where white and brown is our lot, Or fruit in the mid-day hour. I love the oaken seat, Beneath the oaken tree, Where all the old villagers meet, And laugh our sports to see. I love our neighbours all, But, Kitty, I better love thee; And love them I ever shall; But thou art all to me.
Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce, And dost not know the garment from the man; Every harlot was a virgin once, Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan. Tho’ thou art worship’d by the names divine Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Night’s decline, The lost traveller’s dream under the hill.
Darkness | Death | Doubt | Dreams | Eternal | Evil | Father | Good | Haste | Ignorance | Man | Shame | Virtue | Virtue |
Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure married in haste, we repent at leisure.
You throw the sand against the wind And the wind blows it back again.
Benevolence | Smile | Time | Virtue | Virtue |
The pure soul shall mount on native wings . . . and cut a path into the heaven of glory.
Cause | Consequences | God | Indignation | God | Think |
God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform he plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill he treasures up his bright designs, and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Time, animals, and buildings wear out with years, and submit to their hard lot. Time only meets with flat contradiction when he ventures to tell a woman that she is growing old.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old.
Angels | Day | God | Hope | Indignation | Little | Obedience | Rule | God |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
The Ministry in all denominations are the poorest paid workers in the world. They would form a union and demand more pay, but they don’t get enough to pay dues into a union so they can’t form one.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
The platform will always be the same, promise everything, deliver nothing.
Vice |