This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A large part of the mischief and folly of the world comes from rushing in, taking a position, and then not knowing how to retreat. There is something about making a speech or writing an article which perverts the human mind. When the utterance is published, the Rubicon has been crossed and the bridges have been burned. It seems to end in the inquiry, after that we almost cease to be interested in the truth, being so preoccupied to prove that we already possess it.
Criticism | Free press | Government | Necessity | Organic | People | Thinking | Government | Privilege |
A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a revolutionary movement; usually a regime collapses of its own weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have become vacant.
Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.
Darkness | Enough | Light | Men | Society | Work | World | Society | Govern |
Truth sometimes corner unawares upon Caution, and sometimes speaks in public as unconsciously as in a dream.
Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
Where grapholects exist, "correct" grammar and usage are popularly interpreted as the grammar and usage of the grapholect itself to the exclusion of the grammar and usage of the other dialects.
Machines | Sense | Technology | Television | Thinking | Writing |
Walter Mondale, fully Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale
Mr. Reagan will raise taxes; and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.
Fairness | Politics | Television |
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
The speed at which a business success is recognized, furthermore, is not that important as long as the company's intrinsic value is increasing at a satisfactory rate. In fact, delayed recognition can be an advantage: It may give us the chance to buy more of a good thing at a bargain price.
Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy.
Ability | Diversion | Energy | Heart | Marriage | Nothing | Rights | System | Television | Wife | Will | Work | Negotiation | Understand |
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
Good | Happy | Mathematics | Reputation | Waste | Old |
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
In the course of many centuries a few laborsaving devices have been introduced into the mental kitchen — alcohol, coffee, tobacco, Benzedrine, etc. — but these are very crude, constantly breaking down, and liable to injure the cook. Literary composition in the twentieth century A.D. is pretty much what it was in the twentieth century B.C.: nearly everything has still to be done by hand.
W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield
I've been barbecued, stewed, screwed, tattooed, and fried by people claiming to be my friends. The human race has gone backward, not forward, since the days we were apes swinging through the trees.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
Bourgeoisie | Desire | Freedom | Will |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
From the correct Marxist premise concerning the deep economic roots of the class struggle in general and of the political struggle in particular, the Economists have drawn the singular conclusion that we must turn our backs on the political struggle and retard its development, narrow its scope, and reduce its aims. The political wing, on the contrary, has drawn a different conclusion from these same premises, namely, that the deeper the roots of our present struggle, the more widely, the more boldly, the more resolutely, and with greater initiative must we wage this struggle.
Association | Freedom | Speech | Association |
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impression that I did not manage to be happy.
Excitement | Grace | History | Little | Means | Men | Power | Right | Self | Television | Wonder | Understand |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.
I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
News | Television | War | Wisdom | Wonder |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
Will |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
For we think back through our mothers if we are women.