This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Listening (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Friend, have the courage to care little for wealth, and shape yourself, you too, to merit godhead.
There are axioms in probity, in honesty, in justice, just as much as there are axioms in geometry; and the truths of morality are no more at the mercy of a vote than are the truths of algebra.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
Ability | Accident | Day | Growth | Life | Life | Meaning | Power | Psychology | Television | Time | Will |
I dedicate this soul; I am a sacrifice, a sacrifice to them. Bowing low, I fall at the Feet of the Lord.
Despite all the political misery I am confronted with every day, it still is my profound conviction that the very essence of politics is not dirty; dirt is brought in only by wicked people. I admit that this is an area of human activity where the temptation to advance through unfair actions may be stronger than elsewhere, and which thus makes higher demands on human integrity. But it is not true at all that a politician cannot do without lying or intriguing. That is sheer nonsense, often spread by those who want to discourage people from taking an interest in public affairs. Of course, in politics, just as anywhere else in life, it is impossible and it would not be sensible always to say everything bluntly. Yet that does not mean one has to lie. What is needed here are tact, instinct and good taste.
Era | Television | Time | War |
I have preserved my identity, put its credibility to the test and defended my dignity. What good this will bring the world I don't know. But for me it is good.
Choice | Experience | People |
Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
Joy |
Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
All books can be indecent books, though recent books are bolder. For filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd. I could tell you things about Peter Pan, and the Wizard of OZ, there's a dirty old man!
Freedom | Problems | Television |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.
Business | Choice | Death | Destroy | Pain | War | Will | World | Business |
And where two raging fires meet together; they do consume the thing that feeds their fury. Though little fire grows great with little wind, yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all. Taming of the Shrew, Act ii, Scene 1
Gentleness | Pity | Will | Forgive |
God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
Accident | Argument | Boldness | Censure | Deliberation | Earth | Excellence | Force | Man | Morality | Ostentation | Principles | Property | Purpose | Purpose | Rest | Right | Sense | Will | Excellence | Deliberation |
If [we] have no chosen the kingdom of God [first], it will make in the end no difference what [we] have chosen instead.
Desire | Life | Life | Nothing | Perfection |
O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
O, but they say the tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony. Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, for they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose. More are men's ends marked than their lives before. The setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is… Richard II, Act ii, Scene 1
Earth |
I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the monkey mind. The thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. My mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.