This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vain man would trace the mystic maze with foolish wisdom, arguing, charge his God, his balance hold, and guide his angry rod, new-mould the spheres, and mend the skies’ design, and sound th’ immense with his short scanty line. Do thou, my soul, the destined period wait, when God shall solve the dark decrees of fate, His now unequal dispensation clear, and make all wise and beautiful appear.
Balance | Character | Design | Fate | God | Man | Soul | Sound | Wisdom | Wise | God |
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.
Absolute | Achievement | Justice | Logic | Man | Men | Perfection | Purity | Wisdom |
Zitkala-Sa, also Zitkala-Ša, missionary-given name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin NULL
The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfection.
Imperfection | Man | Perfection | Wisdom |
Michelangelo, aka Michaelangelo Buonarroti, fully Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni NULL
Trifles make perfection; but perfection is no trifle.
Perfection | Trifles | Wisdom |
Yamada Koun Zenshin, or Koun Yamada or Yamada Roshi
The purpose of Zen is the perfection of character.
Character | Perfection | Purpose | Purpose | Zen |