This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
Nine-tenths of the serious controversies which arise in life result from misunderstandings; result from one man not knowing the facts which to the other man seem important, or otherwise failing to appreciate his point of view.
History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, n some sort, to be malleable.
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
The root of honesty is an honest intention, the distinct and deliberate purpose to be true, to handle facts as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Facts lend themselves to manipulation. Many a butcher’s hand is worth more than its weight in gold. What we want things to be, we come to see them to be; and the tailor pulls the coat and the truth into a perfect fit from his point of view.
Gold | Honesty | Intention | Purpose | Purpose | Truth | Worth |
Margaret Atwood, fully Margaret Eleanor Atwood
The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.
No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no past at my back.
Experiment | Past | Sacred |
The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.
The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he seldom has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.
Contemplation | Life | Life | Prayer | Contemplation |
The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.
No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.
Experiment | Past | Sacred |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities... There is no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand that this of the role of custom. Until we are intelligent as to its laws and varieties, the main complicating facts of human life must remain unintelligible.
Behavior | Birth | Culture | Custom | Experience | History | Individual | Life | Life | Little | Time | Understand |
One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination.
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession - a property entirely our own. A greater vividness and permanency of impression is secured, and facts thus acquired become registered in the mind in a way that mere imparted information can never produce.
Impression | Knowledge | Labor | Mind | Property |
Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.
We can say without exaggeration that the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover, this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it, but only to be able to quit - a condition that a saner time would regard as infernal, a condemnation.
Ambition | Exaggeration | People | Present | Regard | Retirement | Time | Work | Ambition |