This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
No matter what happened afterward, nothing would take those moments away from me; nothing has taken them away; they shine in my past with a brilliance that has never been tarnished. [About Liberation Day]
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know.
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.
He was welcome everywhere he went, and was well-aware of his inability to tolerate solitude. He felt no inclination to be alone and avoided it as far as possible; he didn't really want to become any better acquainted with himself. He knew that if he wanted to show his talents to best advantage, he needed to strike sparks off other people to fan the flames of warmth and exuberance in his heart. On his own he was frosty, no use to himself at all, like a match left lying in its box.
Adventure | Contempt | Cruelty | Eternal | Excitement | Experience | Little | Man | Men | Observation | Passion | Past | Plenty | Present | Success | Waiting | Wife | Will | Youth | Cruelty | Youth |
As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.
Achievement | Business | Duty | Energy | Fortune | Good | Life | Life | Man | Means | Need | Power | Success | Wife | Woman | Business |
Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.
Children | Duty | Future | Nations | Present | Rule | Wife | World |
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.
Action | Anger | Censure | Cruelty | Leniency | Man | Men | Power | Public | Thought | Wealth | Wife | Cruelty | Thought |
Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo
What is the use of beauty in woman? Provided a woman is physically well made and capable of bearing children, she will always be good enough in the opinion of economists. What is the use of music? -- of painting? Who would be fool enough nowadays to prefer Mozart to Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of white mustard? There is nothing really beautiful save what is of no possible use. Everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and man's needs are low and disgusting, like his own poor, wretched nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet. For my part, saving these gentry's presence, I am of those to whom superfluities are necessaries, and I am fond of things and people in inverse ratio to the service they render me. I prefer a Chinese vase with its mandarins and dragons, which is perfectly useless to me, to a utensil which I do use, and the particular talent of mine which I set most store by is that which enables me not to guess logogriphs and charades. I would very willingly renounce my rights as a Frenchman and a citizen for the sight of an undoubted painting by Raphael, or of a beautiful nude woman, -- Princess Borghese, for instance, when she posed for Canova, or Julia Grisi when she is entering her bath. I would most willingly consent to the return of that cannibal, Charles X., if he brought me, from his residence in Bohemia, a case of Tokai or Johannisberg; and the electoral laws would be quite liberal enough, to my mind, were some of our streets broader and some other things less broad. Though I am not a dilettante, I prefer the sound of a poor fiddle and tambourines to that of the Speaker's bell. I would sell my breeches for a ring, and my bread for jam. The occupation which best befits civilized man seems to me to be idleness or analytically smoking a pipe or cigar. I think highly of those who play skittles, and also of those who write verse. You may perceive that my principles are not utilitarian, and that I shall never be the editor of a virtuous paper, unless I am converted, which would be very comical.
Blush | Bride | Civilization | Marriage | Modesty | Reputation | Right | Society | Wife | World | Society | Old | Think |
The wound that's made by fire will heal, but the wound that's made by tongue will never heal.
Alas, where is this worldes stablenesse? Here up, here doun; here honour, here repreef; [reproof] Now whole, now sick; now bounty, now mischief.
Wife |
Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
Pay it forward with gratuities: This is a good rule of thumb. However, in our day, we sometimes travel several hours to do a funeral because we've worked with other congregations. I’ve done funerals that have paid as if it was my salary, and I’ve had some that barely paid the gas to drive the four hours to do the funeral. Nevertheless, it’s not about the money. It is about honoring that person as much as you can. God will supply all our needs.
The Worship of God - It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend. The man who permits you to injure him deserves your vengeance; He also will receive it. Go, Spectre! obey my most secret desire, Which thou knowest without my speaking. Go to these Friends of Righteousness, Tell them to obey their Humanities, and not pretend Holiness, When they are murderers. As far as my Hammer and Anvil permit, Go tell them that the Worship of God is honouring His gifts In other men, and loving the greatest men best, each according To his Genius, which is the Holy Ghost in Man: there is no other God than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity. He who envies or calumniates, which is murder and cruelty, Murders the Holy One. Go tell them this, and overthrow their cup, Their bread, their altar-table, their incense, and their oath, Their marriage and their baptism, their burial and consecration. I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts, but have only Made enemies; I never made friends but by spiritual gifts, By severe contentions of friendship, and the burning fire of thought. He who would see the Divinity must see Him in His Children, One first in friendship and love, then a Divine Family, and in the midst Jesus will appear. So he who wishes to see a Vision, a perfect Whole, Must see it in its Minute Particulars, organized; and not as thou, O Fiend of Righteousness, pretendest! thine is a disorganized And snowy cloud, brooder of tempests and destructive War. You smile with pomp and rigour, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue, and get murder’d time after time; You accumulate Particulars, and murder by analysing, that you May take the aggregate, and you call the aggregate Moral Law; And you call that swell’d and bloated Form a Minute Particular. But General Forms have their vitality in Particulars; and every Particular is a Man.
Church | Dawn | God | Little | Need | Riches | Wife | Worship | Riches | God | Value |
A Child Of God Longing To See Him Beloved - There's not an echo round me, But I am glad should learn, How pure a fire has found me, The love with which I burn. For none attends with pleasure To what I would reveal; They slight me out of measure, And laugh at all I feel. The rocks receive less proudly The story of my flame; When I approach, they loudly Reverberate his name. I speak to them of sadness, And comforts at a stand; They bid me look for gladness, And better days at hand. Far from all habitation, I heard a happy sound; Big with the consolation, That I have often found. I said, 'My lot is sorrow, My grief has no alloy; The rocks replied--'Tomorrow, Tomorrow brings thee joy.' These sweet and sacred tidings, What bliss it is to hear! For, spite of all my chidings, My weakness and my fear, No sooner I receive them, Than I forget my pain, And, happy to believe them, I love as much again. I fly to scenes romantic, Where never men resort; For in an age so frantic Impiety is sport. For riot and confusion They barter things above; Condemning, as delusion, The joy of perfect love. In this sequestered corner, None hears what I express; Delivered from the scorner, What peace do I possess! Beneath the boughs reclining, Or roving o'er the wild, I live as undesigning And harmless as a child. No troubles here surprise me, I innocently play, While Providence supplies me, And guards me all the day: My dear and kind defender Preserves me safely here, From men of pomp and splendour, Who fill a child with fear
Better | Chance | Good | History | Hope | Husband | Instinct | Nothing | Time | Wife | Afraid | Parent |
William Blackstone, fully Sir William Blackstone
The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.
I looked for my soul but my soul I could not see. I looked for my God but my God eluded me. I looked for a friend and then I found all three.
Artifice | Children | Death | Earth | Experience | God | Light | Love | Man | Men | Patience | Price | Prosperity | Prudence | Prudence | Wife | Wisdom | God |
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure, Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.