This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.
You can't express inspiration without skill.
Daring | Individual | Life | Life | People |
How terrible this darkness was, how bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful!
In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future.
Civilization | Daring | Diversity | Extreme | Influence | Liberty | Nothing | Present | Success | World | Intellect |
All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others.
It's not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the doer of deeds might have done them better. Instead, the credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by sweat and blood and tears.
Courage | Daring | Efficiency | Evil | Idealism | Important | Justice | Love | Men | Nations | Need | Peace | Righteousness | Temper | Wisdom |
The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American
The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.
Attention | Daring | Enough | Government | Law | Lord | Majority | Man | Opinion | Practice | Public | Responsibility | Will | Government |
Waldemar Argow, fully Wendelin Waldemar Wieland Argow
The Jews did one other seemingly contradictory thing. They individualized religion; they made it very real and personal. And yet at the same time they universalized religion! They proclaimed the moral world-rule of one God. All this, perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of religion, was the work of a mere handful of people in a tiny, obscure country at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. And all of this was the heritage or the backg
Belief | Daring | Genius | God | History | Means | People | Religion | World | God | Child | Think |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
We got a long-sighted government. When everybody has got money they cut the taxes, and when they're broke they raise 'em.
Daring |
Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
And then there is the thrill of creatively sowing ideas and inspiration into the minds of others. Often our contributions will actually change lives by sharing appreciation, courage, love, and joy. Carry the ideal of being a creative sower, that you are on the side of growth, plenty, peace, and progress. Make it a point to scatter creative seeds every day of your life!
Adventure | Art | Courage | Curiosity | Daring | Day | Dreams | Faith | Flexibility | Grave | Heart | Life | Life | Man | Men | Reading | Safe | Theories | Flexibility | Art | Stamina |
Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.
Daring | Experience | Forgiveness | God | Law | Men | Religion | Forgiveness | God | Old |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Have you ever been nice to someone in order to keep him in your life, only to see him suddenly turn against you? Being nice to someone, pleasing him, has no influence whatever in changing his nature from bad to good. It is useless and unnecessary to try to change others, for nature-change must include self-change. You will never again waste your days or be betrayed if you remember that you have no real need for a harmful or sour man or woman.
As yet, we Americans have hardly begun to think of the details of execution in any art. We do not aim at perfection of detail even in engineering, much less in literature. In the haste of our national life, most of our intellectual work is done at a rush, is something inserted in the odd moments of the engrossing pursuit. The popular preacher becomes a novelist; the editor turns his paste-pot and scissors to the compilation of a history; the same man must be poet, wit, philanthropist, and genealogist. We find a sort of pleasure in seeing this variety of effort, just as the bystanders like to see a street-musician adjust every joint in his body to a separate instrument, and play a concerted piece with the whole of himself. To be sure, he plays each part badly, but it is such a wonder he should play them all! Thus, in our rather hurried and helter-skelter training, the man is brilliant, perhaps; his main work is well done; but his secondary work is slurred. The book sells, no doubt, by reason of the author’s popularity in other fields; it is only the tone of our national literature that suffers. There is nothing in American life that can make concentration cease to be a virtue. Let a man choose his pursuit, and make all else count for recreation only. Goethe’s advice to Eckermann is infinitely more important here than it ever was in Germany: “Beware of dissipating your power; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.”
Daring | Emotions | Expectation | Intuition | Language | Life | Life | Passion | Sound | Expectation |