This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I have already transmitted to Congress the report of the naval court of inquiry on the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana during the night of the fifteenth of February. The destruction of that noble vessel has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror. Two hundred and fifty-eight brave sailors and marines and two officers of our Navy, reposing in the fancied security of a friendly harbor, have been hurled to death, grief and want brought to their homes and sorrow to the nation.
Men |
O hearken the words of his voice of compassion: "come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions! As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, but surely within you some godhead doth quicken, as ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home."
One was there who left all his friends behind; who going inland ever more and more, and being left quite alone, at last did find a lonely valley sheltered from the wind, wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, a long-deserted ruined castle stood.
Attention | Cause | Danger | Earth | Man | Men | Peace | Society | War | Society | Danger |
It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.
Men |
I too will go, remembering what I said to you, when any land, the first to which we came seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, and all seemed won to you: but still I think, perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain.
Happy | Imagination | Man | Memory | Men | Mind | Past | Pleasure | Soul | Will | Wills | Work | Think |
It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding, ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure, ye noted it not mid your hope and your pleasure; there was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding, but daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure.
Beauty | Desire | Humanity | Life | Life | Man | Men | Sense | Beauty |
Meanwhile the dragon, seeing him clean gone, followed him not, but crying horribly, caught up within her jaws a block of stone and ground it into powder, then turned she, with cries that folk could hear far out at sea, and reached the treasure set apart of old, to brood above the hidden heaps of gold.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of defeat, and when it comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name
Imagination | Man | Men | Past |
It seems to me that the sense of beauty in the external world, of interest in the life of man as a drama, and the desire of communicating this sense of beauty and interest to our fellows is or ought to be an essential part of the humanity of man, and that any man or set of men lacking that sense are less than men, and lack a portion of their birthright just as they were blind or deaf.
One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real and why only a hundred thousand Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.
I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as a part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
Men |
God grant indeed thy words are not for nought! Then shalt thou save me, since for many a day to such a dreadful life I have been brought: nor will I spare with all my heart to pay what man soever takes my grief away; ah! I will love thee, if thou lovest me but well enough my saviour now to be.
Care | Day | Fear | Hate | Hope | Labor | Life | Life | Little | Maxims | Men | Nothing | Pain | People | Rest | Time | Will |
Morn shall meet noon while the flower-stems yet move, though the wind dieth soon
Men |
Elevation is to merit what dress is to a handsome person.
Men |
Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintances.
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
Men |
Few things are impossible in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.