This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ridicule may be the evidence of wit or bitterness and may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but it is no test of reason or truth.
Benevolence | God | Improvement | Obedience | Self | God |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand.
Improvement | Present | Will |
It is not easy to describe in words the precise impression which great and sublime objects make upon us when we behold them; but every one has a conception of it. It produces a sort of internal elevation and expansion; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree of wonder and astonishment which it cannot well express. The emotion is certainly delightful, but it is altogether of the serious kind; a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity, commonly attends it when at its height, very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects.
If you delay till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day, you overcharge the morrow with a burden which belongs not to it. You load the wheels of time, and prevent it from carrying you along smoothly. He who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows out the plan, carries on a thread which will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all his affairs. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, all things lie huddled together in one chaos, which admits neither of distribution nor review.
Though Milton is most distinguished for his sublimity, yet there is also much of the beautiful, the tender, and the pleasing in many parts of his work.
Giving | Good | Improvement | Sensibility | Taste |
Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are negligent of order.
Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.
Better | Conduct | Consideration | Family | Father | Improvement | Justice | Justify | Life | Life | Lying | Magic | Man | Sense | Truth | Understanding | Will | Work | Worth | Vice |
There is at present in the world a cold reserve that keeps man at a distance from man. There is an art in the practice of which individuals communicate forever, without anyone telling his neighbor what estimate he forms of his attainments and character, how they ought to be employed, and how to be improved. There is a sort of domestic tactics, the object of which is to elude curiosity, and keep up the tenor of conversation, without the disclosure either of our feelings or opinions. The friend of justice will have no object more deeply at heart than the annihilation of this duplicity. The man whose heart overflows with kindness for his species will habituate himself to consider, in each successive occasion of social intercourse, how that occasion may be most beneficently improved. Among the topics to which he will be anxious to awaken attention, politics will occupy a principal share.
Art | Chance | Circumstances | Degeneracy | Discovery | History | Imagination | Important | Improvement | Literature | Observation | Past | Philosophy | Practice | Superstition | Will | Discovery | Art |
The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
Improvement | Method | Public |
Served as inspiration for Roger Baldwin, a future founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Change | Improvement | Life | Life | Price | Revolution | Struggle | Worth | Loss |
When you find yourself thinking that your prayer cannot be answered for any reason - treat that reason. When something says that you cannot demonstrate "because" - treat the because. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because I have not enough understanding, treat for understanding. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because I have a headache - treat the headache. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because I am full of doubts - treat the doubts. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because it is now too late - treat against the time illusion. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because in this part of the country - treat against space illusion. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because of my age - treat your age belief. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because someone else will hinder me - treat the belief in a power other than God. No matter what name the because may give itself, it is still your belief in limitation. Be loyal to God and know that He and He alone has all the power. Treat the because.
Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul.
Habit | Improvement |
What are these fundamental principles which have allowed the United States to progress so rapidly and yet remain free? First, a written Constitution clearly defining the limits of government so that government will not become more powerful than the people.
Agony | Earth | Force | Freedom | Government | Harm | Improvement | Individual | People | Power | World | Zeal | Government |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of And£ril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. 'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, D£nadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!
Control | Enough | Improvement | Labor | Money | People | Reason | Responsibility | Slavery | Child | Think |