This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms. Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannons mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lind, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon dotard, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. As You Like It (Jaques at II, vii)
Age | Ends | Good | Man | Men | Reputation | Time | Wise | World |
Unhappy is the man for whom his own wife has not made all other women sacred.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
One generation of fearless women could transform the world, by bringing into it a generation of fearless children, not contorted into unnatural shapes, but straight and candid, generous, affectionate, and free. Their ardor would sweep away the cruelty and pain which we endure because we are lazy, cowardly, hard-hearted and stupid. It is education that gives us these bad qualities, and education that must give us the opposite virtues. Education is the key to the new world.
Children | Cruelty | Education | Pain | Qualities | World | Cruelty |
Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor, and limited, that the urge to escape and the longing to transcend themselves, if only for a few moments, is and always has been one of the principal appetites of the soul.
Alphonse de Lamartine, fully Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine
The reason that women are so much more sociable than men is because they act more from the heart than the intellect.
C. Wright Mills, fully Charles Wright Mills
Our criteria for judging institutions should always include the quality of the men and women they develop and select.
Men |
Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up for what they really think, feel, experience, with a man they are in love with is still very small.
Experience | Love | Man |
Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
Conscience | Culture | Doubt | Ideas | Literature | Men | Nothing |
David J. Schwartz, fully David Joseph Schwartz
The test of a successful person is not an ability to eliminate all problems before they arise, but to meet and work out difficulties when they do arise. We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action. It's still good advice to cross bridges as we come to them.
Ability | Action | Advice | Good | Perfection | Problems | Work |
The beginning of greatness is to be little, the increase of greatness is to be less, and the perfection of greatness is to be nothing.
Beginning | Greatness | Little | Nothing | Perfection |
Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice.
Control | Nature | Perfection | Will |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk without the loss of esteem.
These are the signs of a wise man: to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody, nor event speak of himself or his own efforts.
We don`t really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking about the darkest part of ourselves, the undeveloped part, the true mystery within. In the beginning, I believe man was complete and androgynous-both male and female, or neither, like angels. Then came the division, and Eve was taken from him. So the problem for man is to reunite himself with the other half of his being, to find the woman who is right for him-right be she is simply a projection, a mirror of himself. A man can`t become whole or free until he has set woman free-his woman. It`s his responsibility, not hers. He can`t be complete, truly alive until he makes her his sexual companion, and not a slave of libidinous acts or a saint with a halo.
Darkness | Man | Means | Mystery | Right | Talking | Woman |
Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, and pour out peace.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
He who unreservedly accepts whatever God may give him in this world – humiliation, trouble, and trial from within or from without – has made a great step towards self-victory; he will not dread praise or censure, he will not be sensitive; or if he finds himself wincing, he will deal so cavalierly with his sensitiveness that it will soon die away. Such full resignation and unfeigned acquiescence is true liberty, and hence arises perfect simplicity.
Dread | God | Praise | Resignation | Will | World | Trial | God |