This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.
Distinction | Poetry | Television |
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
Reading not only enlarges and challenges the mind; it also engages and exercises the brain. Today's youth who sits mesmerized by a television screen is not going to be tomorrow's leader. Television watching is passive. Reading is active.
Reading | Television | Youth | Youth |
Robert Bellah, fully Robert Neelly Bellah
We could talk further about the importance of finding an occupation that both gives you a sense of self-respect and provides the resources to live an autonomous life. We talk in Habits of the Heart, about these issues-how for many Americans, at various levels in the occupational hierarchy, the job somehow doesn't prove adequate in fulfilling one's autonomous self and often becomes a means-an instrument-to the acquisition of those resources which will allow one to live in a private lifestyle that will somehow fulfill this expectation that we will find this unique person-who we really are-and attain self-realization, self-fulfillment, happiness. The terms are several but they all point in the same direction. But when we press the question, "What are the criteria that tell us what happiness is or that define the wants that when they are satisfied will lead to self-realization?", then the confident tones that we have been hearing begin to falter. And instead of any clear notion of any content there is simply the reassertion of "Whatever for you that fulfillment or happiness may be." It is not surprising that Americans turn to psychology as the place that is focused on that inner self.
Expectation | Fulfillment | Occupation | Psychology | Self | Sense | Unique | Wants | Will | Expectation | Happiness |
The Trial By Existence - Even the bravest that are slain Shall not dissemble their surprise On waking to find valor reign, Even as on earth, in paradise; And where they sought without the sword Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, To find that the utmost reward Of daring should be still to dare. The light of heaven falls whole and white And is not shattered into dyes, The light for ever is morning light; The hills are verdured pasture-wise; The angel hosts with freshness go, And seek with laughter what to brave;— And binding all is the hushed snow Of the far-distant breaking wave. And from a cliff-top is proclaimed The gathering of the souls for birth, The trial by existence named, The obscuration upon earth. And the slant spirits trooping by In streams and cross- and counter-streams Can but give ear to that sweet cry For its suggestion of what dreams! And the more loitering are turned To view once more the sacrifice Of those who for some good discerned Will gladly give up paradise. And a white shimmering concourse rolls Toward the throne to witness there The speeding of devoted souls Which God makes his especial care. And none are taken but who will, Having first heard the life read out That opens earthward, good and ill, Beyond the shadow of a doubt; And very beautifully God limns, And tenderly, life’s little dream, But naught extenuates or dims, Setting the thing that is supreme. Nor is there wanting in the press Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth. The tale of earth’s unhonored things Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; And the mind whirls and the heart sings, And a shout greets the daring one. But always God speaks at the end: ’One thought in agony of strife The bravest would have by for friend, The memory that he chose the life; But the pure fate to which you go Admits no memory of choice, Or the woe were not earthly woe To which you give the assenting voice.’ And so the choice must be again, But the last choice is still the same; And the awe passes wonder then, And a hush falls for all acclaim. And God has taken a flower of gold And broken it, and used therefrom The mystic link to bind and hold Spirit to matter till death come. ‘Tis of the essence of life here, Though we choose greatly, still to lack The lasting memory at all clear, That life has for us on the wrack Nothing but what we somehow chose; Thus are we wholly stripped of pride In the pain that has but one close, Bearing it crushed and mystified.
Agony | Awe | Choice | Daring | Death | Existence | Fate | God | Gold | Good | Heart | Heaven | Laughter | Life | Life | Light | Little | Memory | Mind | Pain | Pride | Reward | Sacrifice | Spirit | Thought | Valor | Valor | Witness | Woe | Wonder | Fate | Trial | God | Thought |
Religious liberty is the primary source of our civil liberties, and of all our freedom—free speech, free press and radio, freedom of assembly, and the right of petition. When we explore the history of our institutions we come very soon to the matter of religious belief.
Free press | Freedom | History | Liberty | Right |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Lord of the world, O hear my psalm, And as sweet incense take my plea. My heart hath set its love on Thee And finds in speech its only balm. This thought forever haunts my mind, Some day to Thee I must return, From Thee I came and backward yearn My very fount and source to find. Not mine the merit that I stand Before Thee thus, since all is Thine, The glorious work of force divine, No product of my heart or hand. My soul to Thee was humbly bent Even before she had her birth, Before upon the sphere of earth Her heav’nly greatness made descent.
Day | Decision | Evil | Imagination | Judgment | Justify | Man | Righteousness | Scandal | Spirit | Work |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT - Propound a mystery, O my tongue, and give praise to God, For He hath delivered me and exalted my horn. Awake, my heart, and turn to the Almighty, And in awe of His anger let my hand be lifted to Him. Set the Most High before thee, and know that every thought And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden. Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position Wherein is help or refuge for no creature. On the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy beings And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers, Nor pay regard to mighty princes. And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful, The proud and presumptuous who rely on the preciousness of their palanquin; Who have forgotten their Creator and put their trust in their riches And prided themselves above high God, Who humbleth and uplifteth, And have rebelled against their Master, With their host and their multitude, And the silver they have acquired, and the fine gold and sapphires, And have built structures, and carved out windows, And erected palaces, and battlements and chambers, Nor remember the Almighty, But wax fat in the abundance of power, And speak arrogantly to Him And roar like young lions. But He is great and fearful, And girded about with might; He calleth the generations And from Him are the hill-tops. Doth He not regard the lowly, And abase every one that is proud? He will raise up the broken pauper And lift him from the dunghill. Woe to them for this, When their Creator shall sit in judgment, To take vengeance on them, their grown and their little ones, And they shall fall into the net, weeping bitterly, And when quaffing the cup of foaming wine Shall drain only dregs, And shall be consumed in their iniquity, And their riches shall not profit them, And all they build shall be upset As though overthrown by strangers. And the God of the ages will abhor the man of blood And will break the haughty Like a potter’s vessel, And will bring low their pride And silence their psaltery And make their voice sound Like a ghost from the dust, And demolish their battlements And their houses of pleasure, And make over their inheritance To strangers and aliens, And the gadfly shall sting them To determined destruction, And they shall be trodden of passers-by Like a ground or a street. Therefore turn ye from them and their counsels, Nor vie with them Lest your fate be as that of these arrogant.
Fighting | Forgiveness | Guile | Justice | Man | Mercy | Pity | Prayer | Sin | Wrong | Forgiveness | Old |
Down in adoration falling, Lo! the sacred Host we hail; Lo! o'er ancient forms departing, Newer rites of grace prevail; Faith for all defects supplying, Where the feeble senses fail.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
There was a dawn I remember when my soul heard something from your soul. I drank water from your spring and felt the current take me in.
Spirit |
Russell Lynes, fully Joseph Russell Lynes, Jr.
If you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved.
Taste | Television |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural.
Fulfillment | Study | Learn |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
I probably felt more resentment for what I personally was to suffer than for the wrong they were doing to anyone and everyone. But at that time I was determined not to put up with badly behaved people more out of my own interest than because I wanted them to become good people.
Beauty | Eternal | Life | Life | Love | Mystery | Sound | Time | Will | Beauty |
Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.
Freedom | Literature |
Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech
What is an elegant woman? An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and who has no hair under her arms.
Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech
What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible
Cause | Dreams | Order | Television |
Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
The three creative prototypes, the scientist, the artist, and the saint, know instinctively, without the help of any mere philosopher, that each must obey an absolute rule of conduct. Three words established and hallowed by usage express the divinities, the values, the supreme aims served respectively by these three kinds of men with an undivided loyalty: truth for the scientist; beauty for the artist; goodness for the saint. The discussion on what these words mean will never end. We must be content with taking note of their clarity as symbols, and of the singular force which animates them and makes of them powerful poles of attraction.
Freedom |
The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.