This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music? to feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being, past and present, in one ;unspeakable vibration; melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love, that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learned lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past joy?
Courage | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Music | Past | Present | Resignation | Self | Sorrow | Soul | Sympathy | Tenderness | Weakness | Wisdom |
A man knoweth not the worth of a thing before that he wanteth it.
Never one thing and seldom one person can make for a success. It takes a number of them merging into one perfect whole.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Awe | Curiosity | Day | Enough | Eternity | Important | Life | Life | Little | Mystery | Reality | Reason | Wisdom |
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
The act of contemplation then creates the thing contemplated.
Contemplation | Wisdom | Contemplation |
M. Stanton Evans, fully Medford Stanton Evans
Great discoveries or ideas have one thing in common. Before they are achieved they are considered incredible and not worth the effort deemed necessary to make them real. After they are achieved, it is incredible that we should be without them.
Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
Achievement | Mistake | Wisdom |
All Fords are exactly alike, but no two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything just like it before, never will be again. A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth. Society and schools may try to iron it out of him; their tendency is to put it all in the same mold, but I say don't let that spark be lost; it is your only real claim to importance.
Individuality | Life | Life | Man | Men | Society | Will | Wisdom | Worth | Society |
Joseph Fourier, fully Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
Primary causes are unknown to us, but are subject to simple and constant laws, which may be discovered by observation, the study of them being the object of natural philosophy.
Object | Observation | Philosophy | Study | Wisdom |