This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The earth is bathed in music... The drive towards 'synchonicity' and harmony is elemental and universal so it becomes comprehensible that the 'hidden' harmony within ourselves provides us with the strength to find the 'hidden' harmony in the cosmos and universe. The more 'chaotic' and 'atonal' the cluster, the more quickly the harmony develops. Disharmony is a springboard fostering the harmony within ourselves.
How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.
What is strength without a double share of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome; proudly secure, yet liable to fall by weakest subtleties; not made to rule, but to subserve where wisdom bears command.
Wise laws and just restrains are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, strength and defense, though something of an encumbrance.
Because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. that so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Opinion | Order | People | Society | Strength | Time | Tyranny | Society | Danger |
No divine terror will ever be found in the work of the man who wastes a colossal strength in elaborating toys; for the first lesson that terror is sent to teach us is, the value of the human soul, and the shortness of mortal time.
Lesson | Man | Mortal | Soul | Strength | Teach | Terror | Time | Will | Work | Value |
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Society | Strength | Time | Society | Danger |
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Society | Strength | Time | Society | Danger |
To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.
Ambition | Eternity | Glory | Knowledge | Man | Mind | Soul | Strength | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Ambition |
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Prepare yourself for the world, as the athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
Despair | Kindness | Resolution | Strength | Tenderness | Weakness |
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek
There is no limit to the vanity of this world. Each spoke in the wheel thinks the whole strength of the wheel depends upon it.