This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one every thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
Age | Good | Myth | People | Thought | Time | Wisdom | Old | Thought |
Regardless of where a person actually is physically, he is really where his thoughts are. A person constantly has a choice to think elevated and uplifting thoughts or negative, self-destructive thoughts. How old you feel is greatly dependent on your attitude about yourself. Elderly people can increase their vitality and vigor by considering themselves young.
How many people ever consider that the lack of certain qualities - such as balance, common sense, tranquillity - affect the physical state of the human body?... Did you ever hear of people being sick because they hated someone? This is not uncommon.
Balance | Body | Character | Common Sense | People | Qualities | Sense | Tranquility |
Brooke Astor, (née Russell, previously Kuser and Marshall) also known as Mrs Vincent Astor
It was not until I was forty that I was able to go into a room and say to myself, 'What do I think of these people?' Before that, I always thought, 'What do these people think of me?'
I have sometimes a queer mystical feeling as regards the attitude of people in general. Just as there are physical diseases, so there are diseases of feelings. In a little town like this I feel that on some days everyone goes about hating everyone else. Then something happens and a good feeling comes back. I think the whole of mankind must be like that.
Feelings | Good | Little | Mankind | Mystical | People | Wisdom | Think |
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
Materialism is decadent and degenerate only if the spirit of the nation has withered and if individual people are so unimaginative that they wallow in it.
Individual | Materialism | People | Spirit | Wisdom |
When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is truly a wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.
Abuse | Character | Envy | Man | Object | Public | Service | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wise |
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 |
Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White
Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them - this is of the essence of leadership.
Character | Man | People | Power | Responsibility |
Xenophon, aka Xenophon of Athens NULL
Enemies are wealth to anyone who can derive profit from them.