This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
And we will all bake together when we bake. There'll be nobody present at the wake. With complete participation in that grand incineration, nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.
Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
You should all remember: After you take the precepts, never be deceived by such states of confused belief. Even if a Dharma-speaker displays mighty spiritual powers, you should look him over carefully and see if he is greedy. If he is out for money or if he has lust, then he's not genuine. He's a phony.
He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. - He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
But O how slick and weasel-like is self-pride! Our learnedness creeps into our sermons with a clever quotation which adds nothing to God's glory, but a bit to our own. Our cleverness in business competition earns as much self-flattery as does the possession of the money itself. Our desire to be known and approved by others, to have heads nod approvingly about us behind our backs, and flattering murmurs which we can occasionally overhear, confirm the discernment in Alfred Adler's elevation of the superiority motive. Our status as "weighty Friends" gives us secret pleasures which we scarcely own to ourselves, yet thrive upon. Yes, even pride in our own humility is one of the devil's own tricks. But humility rests upon a holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. For wherever he turns his eyes on earth, there he sees only the sun. The God-blinded soul sees naught of self, naught of personal degradation or of personal eminence, but only the Holy Will working impersonally through him, through others, as one objective Life and Power. But what trinkets we have sought after in life, the pursuit of what petty trifles has wasted our years as we have ministered to the enhancement of our own little selves! And what needless anguishes we have suffered because our little selves were defeated, were not flattered, were not cozened and petted! But the blinding God blots out this self and gives humility and true self-hood as wholly full of Him. For as He gives obedience so He graciously gives to us what measure of humility we will accept. Even that is not our own, but His who also gives us obedience. But the humility of the God-blinded soul endures only so long as we look steadily at the Sun. Growth in humility is a measure of our growth in the habit of the Godward-directed mind. And he only is near to God who is exceedingly humble. The last depths of holy and voluntary poverty are not in financial poverty, important as that is; they are in poverty of spirit, in meekness and lowliness of soul.
Body | Evil | Joy | Man | Mystery | Nature | Need | Obedience | Oblivion | Paradox | Soul | Suffering | World |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.
Credit | Government | Growth | Opinion | System | Government |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The great question is whether man shall start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A man is the part he plays among his fellows. He is not isolated; he cannot be. His life is made up of the relations he bears to others - is made or marred by those relations, guided by them, judged by them, expressed in them. There is nothing else upon which he can spend his spirit - nothing else that we can see. It is by these he gets his spiritual growth; it is by these we see his character revealed, his purpose, his gifts. A few (men) act as those who have mastered the secrets of a serious art, with deliberate subordination of themselves to the great end and motive of the play. These have "found themselves," and have all the ease of a perfect adjustment.
Government | Little | Opinion | Government |
Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.
Advice | Body | Genius | Haste | Important | Life | Life | Literature | Man | Nothing | Perfection | Play | Pleasure | Popularity | Reason | Recreation | Wonder | Work | Think |
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
Explore the depths of humility, not with your intellects but with your lives, lived in prayer of humble obedience. And there you will find that humility is not merely a human virtue. For there is a humility that is in God Himself. Be ye humble as God is humble. For love and humility walk hand in hand, in God as well as in man. But there is something about deepest humility which makes men bold. For utter obedience is self-forgetful obedience. No longer do we hesitate and shuffle and apologize because, say we, we are weak, lowly creatures and the world is a pack of snarling wolves among whom we are sent as sheep by the Shepherd. I must confess that, on human judgment, the world tasks we face are appalling—well-nigh hopeless. Only the inner vision of God, only the God-blindedness of unreservedly dedicated souls, only the utterly humble ones can bow and break the raging pride of a power-mad world.
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his condition.
Control | Excellence | Justice | Opinion | Play | Public | Reason | Restraint | Spirit | Excellence | Talent |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.
Government | Man | Opinion | World | Parting | Government |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Whate'er my doom; it cannot be unhappy: God hath given me the boon of resignation.
Opinion |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
You have laid upon me this double obligation: "we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep us out of war, but we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep the honor of the nation unstained."
Convictions | Opinion |
Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness.
Birth | Body | Consequences | Culture | Deference | Distinction | Example | Force | Indulgence | Leisure | Lesson | Men | Office | Practice | Regard | Regulation | Respect | Speech | Respect | Vice |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The only reason I read a book is because I cannot see and converse with the man who wrote it.
Government | Opinion | People | War | Government | Old | Think |