This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Patterns and structure. Everywhere we look we see them. What appears random and chaotic also has order. And on Earth much of the order is linked to interrelationships that drive constant change. Cycles and rhythms. Pulses and flows. Changes in magnetic fields. Continental plates moving. Water cycles. Seasons changing. Life and death. Process and connection. Nature flows through webs of structure and shifting time: from ocean to cloud to rain to river to ocean. Natural rhythms.
Change | Death | Earth | Life | Life | Nature | Order | Time |
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
Many people think it impossible for guerillas to exist for long in the enemy’s rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water and the latter to the fish who inhabits it.
Belief | Enemy | People | Relationship | Think |
Xun Kuang, aka "Master Xun" or Xun Zi, Xunzi, Hsün-Tzu, Hsün-tze, Xún Zǐ, Hsün Tzu
It is traditionally said that the ruler is like a boat and the common people are the water. Water supports the boat but may also upset it.
People |
Freedom is not an ideal it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set - and this in a world where half our fellow man have less than enough to eat.
Dreams | Enough | Freedom | Man | Means | Nothing | Television | World |
How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.
Love |
Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples.
Man | Nature | Wife | Friendship |
What man is there whom contact with a great soul will not exalt? A drop of water upon the petal of a lotus glistens with the splendors of the pearl.
If we turn from contemplating the world as a whole, and, in particular, the generations of men as they live their little hour of mock-existence, and then are swept away in rapid succession; if we turn from this, and look at life in its small details, as presented, say, in a comedy, how ridiculous it all seems ! It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with infusoria; or a speck of cheese full of mites invisible to the naked eye. How e laugh as they bustle about so eagerly, and struggle with one another in so tiny a space! And whether here, or in the little span of human life, this terrible activity produces a comic effect.
Comedy | Existence | Life | Life | Little | Men | Space | Struggle | World |
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. the universe knows none of this. Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality.
Dignity | Enough | Kill | Man | Morality | Nature | Need | Space | Thinking | Thought | Time | Universe | Think | Thought |
In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.
Circumstances | Man | Wise |
A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.
Circumstances | Man | Wise |
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that it was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take from another his wife or his property without paying for it. We were taught that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit-home according to his deserts: If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.
Disgrace | Good | Man | People | Property | Shame | Spirit | Truth | Wife | Will |