This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Grand is the seen, the light, to me - grand are the sky and stars, grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space, but grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those, lighting the slight, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea, (what were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?) More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far - more lasting thou than they.
Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe
You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.
Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |
Elsa Yur'evna Triolet, Born Ella Kagan
Killing time or killing yourself amounts to the same thing, strictly speaking.
The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down to the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the common sense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.
Character | Common Sense | Light | Men | Morality | Nations | Proverbs | Sense | Time | Wise | Wit | Old |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
If we conceive of some point of time which cannot be divided into even the minutes parts of moments, that is the only point that can be called present: and that point flees at such lightning speed from being future to being past, that it has no extent of duration at all.
Awareness of the inevitability of death need not cause sadness. Rather we can use it to destroy the common worries about inconsequential aspects of life. Many worries are over matters that have no lasting value. When you overcome worry, your mind will be free to think of your ultimate goals in life.
Awareness | Cause | Character | Death | Destroy | Goals | Life | Life | Mind | Need | Sadness | Will | Worry | Think |
John H. Vincent, fully John Heyl Vincent
I will this day try to live a simple, sincere, and serene life; repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike trust in God.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Character | Charity | Cheerfulness | Conversation | Day | Diligence | Discontent | Fidelity | God | Habit | Life | Life | Magnanimity | Self | Service | Silence | Thought | Trust | Will | Thought |
They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.