This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is an ecclesiastical cliché used in connection with candidates for the ministry. The candidates do not speak of seeking a job but of receiving a “call,” which in their language is from God. It is a euphemistic pleasantry which deceives no one. Nevertheless the conventional phraseology of being “called” is sometimes a psychological reality and represents an inner transformation and the prelude to a life of dedication. It is a pity that the same spirit is not more evident in the field of medicine. The phenomenon of inner urgency which draws us in one direction against rival interests stems from something deeper than a line of reasoning. Rather it is due to the type of person we are. This prompts us to inquire whether there is any purpose or pattern behind our having been born at all.
Dedication | God | Language | Life | Life | Pity | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Spirit |
Kindness is a language which the blind can see and the deaf can hear.
Reality" is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes.
Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement.
Invention in language should no more be discouraged than should invention in mechanics. Grammar is the grave of letters.
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.
God | Language | Mathematics | Universe | God |
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like cuttlefish squirting out ink.
Aims | Enemy | Insincerity | Language | Words |
Thinking cannot be clear till it has had expression. We must write, or speak, or act our thoughts, or they will remain in a half torpid form. Our feelings must have expression, or they will be as clouds, which, till they descend in rain, will never bring up fruit or flower. So it is with all the inward feelings; expression gives them development. Thought is the blossom; language the opening bud; action the fruit behind it.
Action | Feelings | Language | Thinking | Thought | Will | Thought |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
Language | Words | Friendship |
The highest thoughts are those which are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it is entitled are in exact proportion to is dependency of language and expression.
The more these conscious illusions of the ruling classes are shown to be false and the less they satisfy common sense, the more dogmatically they are asserted and the more deceitful, moralizing and spiritual becomes the language of the established society.
Common Sense | Language | Sense | Society |
Luther Standing Bear, aka Ota Kte or Mochunozhin
For all the great religions have preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, men - all man - is still confronted with the Great Mystery.
Lorenz Oken, born Lorenz Okenfuss
The universe is the language of God.