This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The principal thing in this world is to keep one's soul aloft.
Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?
Why was life so unsatisfactory? Why did everything she leaned on crumble instantly to dust?
Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra
I love to travel, but sometimes it's nice to stay in one place.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
People |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I do not pretend, of course, that I have never done it; mere politeness forces one to it; there are women who sulk and grow bellicose unless one at least makes the motions of kissing them. But what I mean is that I have never found the act a tenth part as agreeable as poets, the authors of musical comedy librettos, and (on the contrary side) chaperones and the gendarmerie make it out. The physical sensation, far from being pleasant, is intensely uncomfortable?the suspension of respiration, indeed, quickly resolves itself into a feeling of suffocation?and the posture necessitated by the approximation of lips and lips is unfailingly a constrained and ungraceful one. Theoretically, a man kisses a woman perpendicularly, with their eyes, those windows of the soul, synchronizing exactly. But actually, on account of the incompressibility of the nasal cartilages, he has to incline either his or her head to an angle of at least 60 degrees, and the result is that his right eye gazes insanely at the space between her eyebrows, while his left eye is fixed upon some vague spot behind her. An instantaneous photograph of such a maneuvre, taken at the moment of incidence, would probably turn the stomach of even the most romantic man, and force him, in sheer self-respect, to renounce kissing as he has renounced leap-frog and walking on stilts.
I've learned that it doesn't matter how your husband squeezes the toothpaste, the important thing is how he squeezes you.
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
As I stoop to lace my shoe you clout me over the coccyx with a length of hickory (Carya lacinosa). I conclude instantly that you are a jackass. This is a whole process of human thought in little. This also is free will.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The only obligation I recognize in this world is my duty to my immediate family
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.
If each and every one endeavors to cooperate and work in as much as his capacity permits, our faith rests upon the Almighty God that he would bless the results for us.
Will |
Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland
He who travels west travels not only with the sun but with history.
Will |
If you ask a member of this generation two simple questions: "How do you want the world to be in fifty years?" and "What do you want your life to be like five years from now?" the answers are quite often preceded by "Provided there is still a world" and "Provided I am still alive." To the often-heard question, ?Who are they, this new generation?? one is tempted to answer, Those who hear the ticking. And to the other question, Who are they who utterly deny them? the answer may well be, Those who do not know, or refuse to face, things as they really are.
Will |
Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland
To know after absence the familiar street and road and village and house is to know again the satisfaction of home.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
Organization | Will | Trouble | Leader |
Fair queen, at home there is none like thee, but over the mountains is Snow-white free, with seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see; a thousand times fairer than thou is she. Queen, thou art not the fairest now; Snow-white over the mountain's brow a thousand times fairer is than thou. Queen, thou art the fairest here, but not when Snow-white is near; over the mountains still is she, fairer a thousand times than thee.