This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The flowers of life are but visionary [illusions]. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit, and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?
We have to serve ourselves many years before we gain our own confidence.
Confidence | Wisdom |
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination.
Ideas | Responsibility | Wisdom |
Philip G. Hamerton, fully Philip Gilbert Hamerton
Among the many advantages of experience, one of the most valuable is that we come to know the range of our own powers, and if we are wise we keep contentedly within them.
Experience | Wisdom | Wise |
Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, flowers, water and love. Of course, if the spectator be without the last, the whole will present but a pitiful appearance; and, in that case, the sun is merely so many miles in diameter, the trees are good for fuel, the flowers are classified by stamens, and the water is simply wet.
Appearance | Good | Love | Means | Nature | Present | Will | Wisdom |
Politicians... rise predominantly from... the "lower middle class"; most are self-made men... ; most depend on their political jobs for their livelihood and most have little time, inclination, or opportunity for adult education; hence the dominating qualities of so many are greed, vulgarity, attention to special interest, avarice, and selfishness.
Attention | Avarice | Education | Greed | Inclination | Little | Men | Opportunity | Qualities | Self | Selfishness | Time | Vulgarity | Wisdom |
There is one type of feeling which is above all important to foster in childhood. Children have naturally an abundant faculty for wonder and reverence. There are so many books, so many radio and television hours, so many encyclopedias and, alas, so many teachers whose aim is to import knowledge quickly and easily without any element of that faculty which the Greeks said was the beginning of philosophy – Wonder. It is strange that an age which has discovered so many marvels in the universe should be so conspicuously lacking in the sense of wonder.
Age | Beginning | Books | Childhood | Children | Important | Knowledge | Philosophy | Reverence | Sense | Television | Universe | Wisdom | Wonder |
A rather important contemporary problem: too many unintelligent intellectuals.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the leveling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practices so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.
Character | Distinguish | Existence | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Opinion | Popularity | Wisdom |
Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much, says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.
Ideas | Language | Little | Man | Observation | Reflection | Sound | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | Thought |
One of the most valuable habits a parent can have is that of explaining. Many parents think their children are too young to understand explanations, yet it is surprising how much a child will absorb if he is given a chance. And even if he does not understand completely, he will at least sense that someone cares enough to explain
Chance | Children | Enough | Parents | Sense | Will | Wisdom | Child | Parent | Think | Understand |
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.
Business | Commerce | Consequences | Control | Free speech | Government | Industry | Life | Life | Means | Order | Peace | People | Speech | Time | Wisdom | Government | Business | Commerce |