This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is only in the stillness and simplicity of presence - when we are aware of what we are experiencing, when we are here with it as it unfolds - that we can really appreciate our life and reconnect with the ordinary magic of being alive on this earth... Our life is unsatisfactory only because we are not living it fully, because instead we are pursuing a happiness that is always somewhere else, other than where we are right now.
Character | Earth | Life | Life | Magic | Right | Simplicity | Happiness |
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
Ninety-two percent of the stuff told to you in confidence you couldn't get anybody else to listen to.
Confidence | Wisdom |
We must be knit together in this work as one man; we must entertain each other in brotherly affection; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together; always having before our eyes our commission and community as members of the same body.
Body | Character | Commerce | Gentleness | Labor | Man | Meekness | Mourn | Patience | Work | Commerce |
Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.
Elegance | Language | Power | Prudence | Prudence | Simplicity | Wisdom |
People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next, they have had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they; then have to be careful not to mistrust every one, and to put the worst construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the greater number of men have much; more good in them than bad, and that even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than condemn; and then a spirit of confidence again awakens within them.
Blame | Cause | Confidence | Experience | Good | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mistrust | People | Pity | Reason | Spirit | Wisdom | Friendship | Learn |
The young can bear solitude better than the old, for their passions occupy their thoughts.
Few companies would have reached the going-concern stage without the inflated confidence of their founders. Entrepreneurs tend to be like eighteen-year-old marines who believe the bullet will go right through them without hurt or harm.
Confidence | Harm | Right | Will | Wisdom |
The most effective teacher will always be biased, for the chief force in teaching is confidence and enthusiasm.
Confidence | Enthusiasm | Force | Will | Wisdom | Teacher |
An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.
Better | Ideas | Incoherent | Little | Patience | Wisdom | Old |
We may have the confidence of another without possessing his heart. If his heart be ours, there is no need of revelation or of confidence, all is open to us.
Confidence | Heart | Need | Revelation | Wisdom |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
A new philosophy, a way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and only acquired with much patience and great effort.
Effort | Life | Life | Nothing | Patience | Philosophy | Wisdom |