This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We call him a hero who maintains himself, single-handed, against superior numbers. We call him a master-horseman who sits a fiery and vicious steed, guiding him at will. And in like manner, we call him a moral hero who conquers the enemies within his own breast — and we admire and revere the soul which can ride its own passions and force them into obedience to the dictates of reason.
Art | Better | Character | Estimation | Insight | Need | Science | Understanding | Art |
Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit. Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known. To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic communities is our aim. We seek to come into touch with the ultimate power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.
Children | Future | Happy | Light | Past | Time | Truth | Will | Work | World |
There is a city to be built, the plan of which we carry in our heads, in our hearts. Countless generations have already toiled at the building of it. The effort to aid in completing it, with us, takes the place of prayer. In this sense we say, "Laborare est orare."
Daring | Life | Life | Man | Men | Present | Righteousness | Search | Theories | Thinkers | Thought | Time | Truth | Unity | Will | Woman | World | Youth | Youth | Learn | Thought |
We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. Thus shall we avoid even the appearance of interfering with those to whom prayer and ritual, as a mode of expressing religious sentiment, are dear. And on the other hand we shall be just to those who have ceased to regard them as satisfactory and dispensed with them in their own persons.
To those who are longing for a higher life, who deeply feel the need of religious satisfactions, we suggest that there is a way in which the demands of the head and the heart may be reconciled. Religion is not necessarily allied with dogma, a new kind of faith is possible, based not upon legend and tradition, not upon the authority of any book, but upon the moral nature of man.
Belief | Misfortune | Need | Past | Progress | Truth | Misfortune | Truths |
To understand the meaning of a great religious teacher we must find in our own life experiences somewhat akin to his. To selfish, unprincipled persons whose heart is wholly set on worldly ends, what meaning, for instance, can such utterances have as these? "You must become like little children if you would possess the kingdom of heaven;" "You must be willing to lose your life in order to save it;" "If you would be first you must consent to be last." To the worldly-minded such words convey no sense whatever; they are, in fact, rank absurdity.
Authority | Faith | Heart | Longing | Nature | Need | Religion |
It's no good fighting against Fate or trying to resist the smile of the angels. Who can help being swept off his feet by all that is beautiful, charming, adorable?
Need |
Matters of deeper import seemed to seek utterance in the expression of their eyes. They tried to speak of ordinary, everyday things, but all the while they felt a mutual languor stealing into their inmost being. It was like a murmur of the soul, deep down, persistent, dominating the spoken word. Lost in wonder at the strange sweetness that stole upon their senses, they never spoke of it to one another or sought to probe its cause. Coming delights, like the shores of tropic isles, exhale across the spreading seas their perfume-laden airs, the native softness of the clime; and they who breathe them, their spirits lulled as if by wine, scan not, nor try to scan, the faint, far-off horizon.
Need |
My novel is the rock to which I cling and I know nothing of what is taking place in the world.
Need |
So from now on the days were going to continue one after the other like this, always the same, innumerable, bringing nothing!... It was God's will. The future was a pitch-black tunnel, ending in a locked door. She gave up her music: why should she play? Who was there to listen?... She left her drawing books and her embroidery in a closet. What was the use of anything? What was the use?
There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going.
Time |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Eugenics is the theory that charm in a woman is the same as charmed in a prize-fighter.
Need |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
If Wall Street really wants to dispose of John L. Lewis, let it invite him to a swell feed, hand him a fifty-cent cigar with a torpedo in it, and so burn off his eyebrows.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again next time.
There are three things in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.
Time |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.