This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.
Body | Character | Fame | Fortune | Judgment | Life | Life | Oblivion | Perception | Soul | Time |
In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil. In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?
Art | Character | Heart | Indignation | Love | Man | People | Power | Rest | Soul | Art |
That discipline which corrects the eagerness of worldly passions, which fortifies the heart with virtuous principles, which enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes to it matter of enjoyment from within itself, is of more consequence to real felicity than all the provisions which we can make of the goods of fortune.
Character | Discipline | Enjoyment | Fortune | Heart | Knowledge | Mind | Principles |
Perhaps the most important lesson the world has learned in the past fifty years is that it is not true that "human nature is unchangeable."
Character | Human nature | Important | Lesson | Nature | Past | World |
Having no soul union with other men can be the most damaging wound of all.
In addition to the inflation, we have stagnating productivity. People don’t work the way they used to.
If you want to earn more - learn more. If you want to get more out of the world you must put more into the world. For, after all, men will get no more out of life than they put into it.
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness.
Character | Cheerfulness | Distinction | Mind |