This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
William Melmoth, wrote under pseudonym Sir Thomas Fitzosborne
Upon this principle I imagine it is that some of the finest pieces of antiquity are written in the dialogue manner. Plato and Tully, it should seem, thought truth could never be examined with more advantage than amidst the amicable opposition of well-regulated converse.
Absurd | Circumstances | Contrast | Conversation | Friend | Language | Learning | Lord | Method | Reason | Spirit | Strength | Wonder | World |
God grant indeed thy words are not for nought! Then shalt thou save me, since for many a day to such a dreadful life I have been brought: nor will I spare with all my heart to pay what man soever takes my grief away; ah! I will love thee, if thou lovest me but well enough my saviour now to be.
Care | Day | Fear | Hate | Hope | Labor | Life | Life | Little | Maxims | Men | Nothing | Pain | People | Rest | Time | Will |
If our houses, or clothes, our household furniture and utensils are not works of art, they are either wretched makeshifts, or, what is worse, degrading shams of better things.
Vision |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the causal integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.
Experience | Learning |
Few men are so clever as to know all the mischief they do.
Chance |
All women seem by nature to be coquettes.
Self-love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them; and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.
People |
We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.
Some persons of weak understanding are so sensible of that weakness, as to be able to make a good use of it.
People |
It is not expedient or wise to examine our friends too closely; few persons are raised in our esteem by a close examination.
Enough |
We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship.
If you cannot find peace in yourself, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.
The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.
Conversation | People | Reason | Thinking |
The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.
It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them
Wise |
People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about.
There are people who, like new songs, are in vogue only for a time.
We are more often treacherous, through weakness than through calculation.
Happy |