This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
That even among the most hackneyed and most hardened of malefactors there is still about them a softer part which will give way to the demonstrations of tenderness; that this one ingredient of a better character is still found to survive the dissipation of all the others, that, fallen as a brother may be from the moralities which at one time adorned him, the manifested good will of his fellow-man still carries a charm and an influence along with it; and that, therefore, there lies in this an operation which, as no poverty can vitiate, so no depravity can extinguish.
Chance | Conscience | Indulgence | Law | Mind | Object | Pleasure | Present | Will | Guilty |
It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.
She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
Or was he merely a mollycoddled favorite, enjoying capriciously prejudiced love? Schenback was inclined to believe the latter. Inborn in nearly every artist’s nature is a voluptuous, treacherous tendency to accept the injustice if it creates beauty and to grant sympathy and homage to aristocratic preferences.
Chance |
In an evolved society there are no innocent victims of propaganda.Propaganda succeeds because men want it to succeed. It works on minds because those minds want to be worked on. Its conclusions bring apparent light and satisfaction because that is the kind of satisfaction that people are longing for. It leads them to actions for which they are already half prepared: all they ask is that these actions be justified. If war propaganda succeeds it is because people want war, and only need a few good reasons to justify their own desire.
When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.
Chance | Children | Land | Love | Purity | Quiet | Rest | Vision | Old |
Maximus of Tyre, fully Cassius Maximus Tyrius NULL
Whether by justice, or by fraud oblique,the earthly race of men, a loftier wall ascends, my mind is dubious.
Blessings | Chance | Fate | Men | Prayer | Providence | Witness | Fate |
Virginia Gildersleeve, fully Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve
There was danger at times that women might not be judged by the highest standards, but more leniently because of their sex. "She is a remarkably good chemist--for a woman," you might hear a man say. It seemed to me essential, if the ablest young women scholars were to achieve the best work of which they were capable, that they should be held to the most rigorous standards. ...To advance, a woman must do at least as good work as her male colleagues, usually better.
Ch'ien, fully T'ao Chien or Tao Qian, aka Tao Yuan-ming NULL
Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock -- Keeps flying by itself in the dusk. Back and forth, it has no resting place, Night after night, more anguished its cries. Its shrill sound yearns for the pure and distant -- Coming from afar, how anxiously it flutters! It chances to find a pine tree growing all apart; Folding its wings, it has come home at last. In the gusty wind there is no dense growth; This canopy alone does not decay. Having found a perch to roost on, In a thousand years it will not depart.
William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley
Margaritae Sorori - A late lark twitters from the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace. The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night-- Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep. So be my passing! My task accomplish'd and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gather'd to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.
Chance | Heart | Man | Praise | Pride | Search | Sound | Worth | Loss |
My eight years in Brooklyn gave me a new vision of America, or rather America gave me a new vision of a part of itself, Brooklyn. They were wonderful years. A community of over three million people, proud, hurt, jealous, seeking geographical, social, emotional status as a city apart and alone and sufficient. One could not live for eight years in Brooklyn and not catch its spirit of devotion to its baseball club, such as no other city in America equaled. Call it loyalty, and so it was. It would be a crime against a community of three million people to move the Dodgers. Not that the move was unlawful, since people have the right to do as they please with their property. But a baseball club in any city in America is a quasi-public institution, and in Brooklyn the Dodgers were public without the quasi.
Chance | Equality | Incredulity | Men | Opportunity | Posterity | Will | Wonder | Think |
William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley
Ballade of Dead Actors - Where are the passions they essayed, And where the tears they made to flow? Where the wild humours they portrayed For laughing worlds to see and know? Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? And Millamant and Romeo? Into the night go one and all. Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed? The plumes, the armours -- friend and foe? The cloth of gold, the rare brocade, The mantles glittering to and fro? The pomp, the pride, the royal show? The cries of war and festival? The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow? Into the night go one and all. The curtain falls, the play is played: The Beggar packs beside the Beau; The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid; The Thunder huddles with the Snow. Where are the revellers high and low? The clashing swords? The lover's call? The dancers gleaming row on row? Into the night go one and all.
Age | Chance | Duty | Fear | Gold | Need | Politics | Time | War | Wit |
When Old Corruption first begun, Adorn’d in yellow vest, He committed on Flesh a whoredom— O, what a wicked beast! From then a callow babe did spring, And Old Corruption smil’d To think his race should never end, For now he had a child. He call’d him Surgery and fed The babe with his own milk; For Flesh and he could ne’er agree: She would not let him suck. And this he always kept in mind; And form’d a crooked knife, And ran about with bloody hands To seek his mother’s life. And as he ran to seek his mother He met with a dead woman. He fell in love and married her— A deed which is not common! She soon grew pregnant, and brought forth Scurvy and Spotted Fever, The father grinn’d and skipt about, And said ‘I’m made for ever! ‘For now I have procur’d these imps I’ll try experiments.’ With that he tied poor Scurvy down, And stopt up all its vents. And when the child began to swell He shouted out aloud— ‘I’ve found the dropsy out, and soon Shall do the world more good.’ He took up Fever by the neck, And cut out all its spots; And, thro’ the holes which he had made, He first discover’d guts.
A Child Of God Longing To See Him Beloved - There's not an echo round me, But I am glad should learn, How pure a fire has found me, The love with which I burn. For none attends with pleasure To what I would reveal; They slight me out of measure, And laugh at all I feel. The rocks receive less proudly The story of my flame; When I approach, they loudly Reverberate his name. I speak to them of sadness, And comforts at a stand; They bid me look for gladness, And better days at hand. Far from all habitation, I heard a happy sound; Big with the consolation, That I have often found. I said, 'My lot is sorrow, My grief has no alloy; The rocks replied--'Tomorrow, Tomorrow brings thee joy.' These sweet and sacred tidings, What bliss it is to hear! For, spite of all my chidings, My weakness and my fear, No sooner I receive them, Than I forget my pain, And, happy to believe them, I love as much again. I fly to scenes romantic, Where never men resort; For in an age so frantic Impiety is sport. For riot and confusion They barter things above; Condemning, as delusion, The joy of perfect love. In this sequestered corner, None hears what I express; Delivered from the scorner, What peace do I possess! Beneath the boughs reclining, Or roving o'er the wild, I live as undesigning And harmless as a child. No troubles here surprise me, I innocently play, While Providence supplies me, And guards me all the day: My dear and kind defender Preserves me safely here, From men of pomp and splendour, Who fill a child with fear
Better | Chance | Good | History | Hope | Husband | Instinct | Nothing | Time | Wife | Afraid | Parent |
Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness, speak cheering words while their ears can hear, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
I have been trying my best to help (the President) and Wall Street Restore Confidence. Confidence, is one of the hardest things in the World to get restored once it gets out of bounds. I have helped restore a lot of things in my time, such as cattle back to the home range. Helped to revive interest in National Political Conventions. Even assisted the Democrats in every forlorn pilgrimage, and a host of other worthy charities. But I tell you this Restoring Confidence is the toughest drive I ever assisted in. When I took up the work two or three weeks ago, confidence was at a mighty low ebb. Wall Street had gone into one tail spin after another… I am telling (folks) that the Country as a whole is Sound, and that all those who's heads are solid are bound to get back into the market again. I tell 'em that this Country is bigger than Wall Street, and if they don't believe it, I show 'em the map.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.