This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Man is not yet so transfigured that he has ceased to keep the window of his mind and heart open towards Jerusalem, Galilee, Mecca, Canterbury, or Plymouth. The abstract proposal that we worship at any place where God lets down the ladder is not yet an adequate substitute for the deep desire to go up to some central sanctuary where the religious artist vindicates a concrete universal in the realm of the spirit." - Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
"When Sir Joshua Reynolds died all nature was degraded; the king dropped a tear in the queen's ear, and all his pictures faded." - William Blake
"I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up." - Walter Bagehot
"As contemplation [of a work of art or literature] enters upon a more serious stage, the human being is driven by the whole economy of what it is to be man to find opposite himself, in that which he contemplates, a person capable of reacting in turn. This drive is primordial and will not be denied." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place." - Washington Irving
"In a time of disorder [Laertes] has returned to the care of the earth, the foundation of life and hope. And Odysseus finds him in an act emblematic of the best and most responsible kind of agriculture: an old man caring for a young tree." - Wendell Berry
"A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"A dogma is a dark chamber." - Victor Hugo
"The American Civil War was the first modern war. It is true that the Crimean War, some eight years earlier, has resemblances with the American conflict. There is the awakening of public concern for the care of casualties, a concern which had grown with medical knowledge. But the Crimean War was fought in a small area. It was fought by professional soldiers--the British commander-in-chief directed operations from his private yacht to which he returned to dine and sleep every night--and the casualties, though heavy, were than half of those suffered in America, where a million men died in the field, the hospitals and the prison camps. The Civil War involved everyone, the armies became conscript armies almost at once. The professional soldiers were put to the task of training the man in the street." - V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down … Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that they like." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Could I be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space - it were not that I have bad dreams. Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare
"Historically, there had been many periods of Chinese Renaissance." - Hu Shih, or Hú Shì
"Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact." - Emil M. Cioran
"On Jack Kennedy: [He was] very, very funny....He was droll about himself. God knows he was droll about the family. He saw through them all, including Bobby....He should have been a journalist. In fact, he would have been a very good one, a gossip columnist. He knew who was f--king everyone on earth at every given moment. He had an absolute passion to know those details." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"One devil does not make hell." - Italian Proverbs
"Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
"Man is not yet so transfigured that he has ceased to keep the window of his mind and heart open towards Jerusalem, Galilee, Mecca, Canterbury, or Plymouth. The abstract proposal that we worship at any place where God lets down the ladder is not yet an adequate substitute for the deep desire to go up to some central sanctuary where the religious artist vindicates a concrete universal in the realm of the spirit." - Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
"When Sir Joshua Reynolds died all nature was degraded; the king dropped a tear in the queen's ear, and all his pictures faded." - William Blake
"I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up." - Walter Bagehot
"As contemplation [of a work of art or literature] enters upon a more serious stage, the human being is driven by the whole economy of what it is to be man to find opposite himself, in that which he contemplates, a person capable of reacting in turn. This drive is primordial and will not be denied." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place." - Washington Irving
"In a time of disorder [Laertes] has returned to the care of the earth, the foundation of life and hope. And Odysseus finds him in an act emblematic of the best and most responsible kind of agriculture: an old man caring for a young tree." - Wendell Berry
"A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"A dogma is a dark chamber." - Victor Hugo
"The American Civil War was the first modern war. It is true that the Crimean War, some eight years earlier, has resemblances with the American conflict. There is the awakening of public concern for the care of casualties, a concern which had grown with medical knowledge. But the Crimean War was fought in a small area. It was fought by professional soldiers--the British commander-in-chief directed operations from his private yacht to which he returned to dine and sleep every night--and the casualties, though heavy, were than half of those suffered in America, where a million men died in the field, the hospitals and the prison camps. The Civil War involved everyone, the armies became conscript armies almost at once. The professional soldiers were put to the task of training the man in the street." - V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down … Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that they like." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Could I be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space - it were not that I have bad dreams. Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare
"Historically, there had been many periods of Chinese Renaissance." - Hu Shih, or Hú Shì
"Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact." - Emil M. Cioran
"On Jack Kennedy: [He was] very, very funny....He was droll about himself. God knows he was droll about the family. He saw through them all, including Bobby....He should have been a journalist. In fact, he would have been a very good one, a gossip columnist. He knew who was f--king everyone on earth at every given moment. He had an absolute passion to know those details." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"One devil does not make hell." - Italian Proverbs
"Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien