This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I still find each day too short for all thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I lie the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and wonder of the world.
Beauty | Books | Day | Mind | Wonder | World | Beauty | Friends |
John W. Gardner, fully John William Gardner
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: “Only stand out of my light.” Perhaps some day we shall know ho to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
Creativity | Day | Light | Men |
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
John W. Gardner, fully John William Gardner
To sensible men, every day is a day of reckoning.
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation – initiation – return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth. A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from his mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Adventure | Day | Hero | Man | Power | Rites | Wonder | World |
A word of compassion to the weak criminal or prostitute is nobler than the long prayer which we repeat emptily every day in the temple.
Compassion | Day | Prayer |
A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search for truth and perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life... Variation, experiment and insurgence are all of them attributes of freedom.
Beauty | Contemplation | Day | Experiment | Freedom | Life | Life | Mystery | Perfection | Poverty | Search | Sound | Truth | Contemplation |
In slave labor, even that part of the working day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of existence, in which, therefore, in fact, he works for himself alone, appears as labor for his master. All the slaves labor appears as unpaid labor.
The soul is an embryo in the body of man, and the day of death is the day of awakening, for it is the great era of labour and the rich hour of creation... Death is an ending to the son of the earth, but to the soul it is the start, the triumph of life... Death removes but the touch, and not the awareness of all good. And he who has lived one spring or more possesses the spiritual life of one who has lived a score of springs.
Awakening | Awareness | Body | Day | Death | Earth | Era | Good | Life | Life | Man | Soul | Awareness |
Life is growth - a challenge of environment. If we cannot meet our everyday surroundings with equanimity and pleasure and grow each day in some useful direction, then this splendid balance of cosmic forces which we call life is on the road toward misfortune, misery and destruction. Therefore, health is the most precious of all things.
Balance | Challenge | Day | Equanimity | Growth | Health | Life | Life | Misfortune | Pleasure |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Lord, let me make this rule to think of life as school, and try my best to stand each test, and do my work and nothing shirk. Should someone else outshine this dullard head of mine, should I be sad? I will be glad. To do my best is Thy behest. Some day the bell will sound, some day my heart will bound, as that with a shout, that school is out and lessons done, I homeward run.
Day | Heart | Life | Life | Lord | Nothing | Rule | Sound | Will | Work | Think |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Have you ever had your day suddenly turn sunshiny because of a cheerful word? Have you ever wondered if this could be the same world because someone had been unexpectedly kind to you? You can make today the same for somebody. It is only a question of a little imagination, a little time and trouble. Think now, "What can I do today to make someone happy?"
Day | Happy | Imagination | Little | Question | Time | World | Think |
Margaret Thatcher, fully Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, née Roberts
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.