This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This is the day of instant genius. Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline.
Accomplishment | Day | Discipline | Genius | Self |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.
Day | Eternity | Instinct | Time | Will | Wise | Intellect | Think |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
It is a gift to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of the arts.
Day |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of arts.
Day |
What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand - day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries - these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul.
Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion.
Keep the home near heaven. Let it face toward the Father’s house. Not only let the day begin and end with God, with mercies acknowledged and forgiveness sought, but let it be seen and felt that God is your chiefest joy, His will in all you do the absolute and sufficient reason.
Absolute | Day | Father | Forgiveness | God | Heaven | Joy | Reason | Will | Forgiveness | God |
Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given for you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything . Live the questions now and perhaps without knowing it you will live along some day into the answers.
Do not run after happiness, but seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you. The day will dawn full of expectation, the night will fall full of repose. This world will seem a very good place, and the world to come a better place still.
Better | Dawn | Day | Expectation | Good | Repose | Will | World | Happiness |