This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"As for loving woman, I have never understood why some people had a fit. I still don't. It seems fine to me. If an individual is productive responsible, and energetic, why should her choice in a partner make such a fuss? The government is only too happy to take my tax money and yet they uphold legislation that keeps me a second class citizen. Surely, there should be a tax break for those of us who are robbed of full and equal participation and protection in the life of our nation." - Rita Mae Brown
"A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life." - Robertson Davies
"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?" - Robertson Davies
"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness." - Robertson Davies
"I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness." - Robertson Davies
"If our age is not distinguished for a greatly increased number of happy marriages and a more intelligent approach to the problems of sex, we may surely assert that some forms of misery in the sexual realm are less widespread than they used to be; and of the many people who are unhappy, thousands have some idea of what lies at the root of their unhappiness, and thus far they are better off than their forefathers, who had none, or attributed their distress to sin." - Robertson Davies
"Only a fool expects to be happy all the time." - Robertson Davies
"If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we must stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes." - Robert Oxton Bolt
"A society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
"We'll always be happy with more convention space or plenary space, ... The city can always use it." - Robert Boyle
"There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be only to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things." - Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges
"The world produces for every pint of honey a gallon of gall, for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain, for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompass the happy man. Felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth; her gardens are the skies." - Robert Burton
"My conscience is my crown, Contented thoughts my rest; My heart is happy in itself, My bliss is in my breast... Enough I reckon wealth; A mean the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, Too low for envy's shot... I feel no care of coin, Well-doing is my wealth; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health... rise by others' fall I deem a losing gain; All states with others' ruins built To ruin run amain... Fortune smiles, I smile to think How quickly she will frown." - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"Behold the father is his daughter's son, The bird that built the nest is hatched therein, The old of years an hour hath not outrun, Eternal life to live doth now begin, The Word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep, Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep. O dying souls, behold your living spring; O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring; Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs. Gift better than himself God doth not know; Gift better than his God no man can see. This gift doth here the giver given bestow; Gift to this gift let each receiver be. God is my gift, himself he freely gave me; God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. Man altered was by sin from man to beast; Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh. Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh. O happy field wherein that fodder grew, Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew. " - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
"Justice is the only worship. Love is the only priest. Ignorance is the only slavery. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now, The place to be happy is here, The way to be happy is to make others so. Wisdom is the science of happiness. " - Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
"I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. That he will not torture the forgiving. Upon that rock I stand. That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. Upon that rock I stand. The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come. Upon that rock I stand. " - Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
"My creed: To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits, to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love family and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world; to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words; to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then be resigned. This is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and the heart." - Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
"The secret to a happy life is to run out of cash and air at the same time." - Bobby Layne, fully Robert Lawrence "Bobby" Layne
"In your persistent questioning, "Who do you say that I am?" You are the one who loves me into endless life. You open up the way of risk. You go ahead of me along the way of holiness, where happy are they who die of love, where the ultimate response is martyrdom. Day by day you transfigure the "no" in me into "Yes". You ask me, not for a few scraps, but for the whole of my existence. You are the one who prays in me by day and night. My stammerings are prayer: simply calling you by your name, Jesus, fills our communion to the full. You are the one who, every morning, slips on my finger the ring of the prodigal son, the ring of festival. So why have I wavered so long? You have been seeking me unwearyingly. Why did I hesitate once again, asking for time to deal with my own affairs? Once I had set my hand to the plough, why did I look back? Without realizing it, I was making myself unfit to follow you. Yet, though I had never seen you, I loved you. You kept on saying: Live the little bit of the gospel you have grasped. Proclaim my life. Light fire on the earth... You, follow me... Until one day I understood: you were asking me to commit myself to the point of no return." - Roger Schutz, aka Frère Roger, Brother Roger of Taize, baptised Roger Louis Schütz-Marsauche
"Spirit splits in its asking, and soul in its wanting is balked; and the body, fattened, is vital and full— its precious being uneasy . . . But the modest man walks on the earth with his thought drawn toward sky. What good is the pulse of man’s flesh and its favors when the mind is in pain? And the friends who fray me, their fine physiques and slender thinking, thinking it’s ease or gain that drives me, pitching from place to place, my hair wild, my eyes charcoaled with night— and not a one speaks wisely, their souls blunted, or blurred, goat-footed thinkers. Should someone unguilty hold back from longing toward heights like the moon? Should he wait, weaving its light across him like a man stretching taut his tent skin, until he acts and they hear of his action, as he adds and then adds like the sea to his fame? By God and God’s faithful— and I keep my oaths— I’ll climb cliffs and descend to the innermost pit, and sew the edge of desert to desert, and split the sea and every gorge, and sail in mountainous ascent, until the word “forever” makes sense to me, and my enemies fear me, and my friends in that fear find solace; then free men will turn their faces toward mine, as I face theirs, and soul will save us, as it trips our obstructors. The beds of our friendship are rich with it, planted by the river of affection, and fixed like a seal in wax, like graven gold in the windowed dome of the temple. May YAH be with you as you love, and your soul which He loves be delivered, and the God of sentence send aegis, beyond both the sun and the moon." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
"Love in my heart is a cry forever Lost as the swallow's flight, Seeking for you and never, never Stilled by the stars at night." - Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger
"In monarchies, the great art to arrive at a spot prominent, not is often only knows bored." - Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan
"Europe is sick, and the experts are busy with remedies for her healing. Conference and consortium, deflation and disarmament, an imposed customs union and a disguised protectorate, are among the proffered prescriptions. Some of her advisers, notably those from Great Britain and the United States, who have strong reasons of their own for desiring rapidly to increase Europe's buying power, see the whole Continent sinking into disintegration, and bid us despair of all but the most drastic remedies." - Alfred Zimmern, fully Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern
"There is in every human heart some not completely barren part, where seeds of truth and love might grow, and flowers of generous virtue flow; to plant, to watch, to water there, this be our duty, be our care." - John Bowring, fully Sir John Bowring
"The scarcity of leadership from people in authority, however, makes it all the more critical to the adaptive successes of a polity that leadership be exercised by people without authority." - Ronald A. Heifetz
"To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is misunderstood or that he is different; none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more that merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good." - Helen Rowland
"They have left behind the world of deceitful games. They are the privileged lovers who create a new world with their eyes of fiery passion." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"All the little emptiness of love." - Rupert Brooke
"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it." - Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker
"When the weather is bad as it was yesterday, everybody, almost everybody, feels cross and gloomy. Our thin linen tents, about like a fish seine, the deep mud, the irregular mails, the never to-be-seen paymasters, and "the rest of mankind," are growled about in "old-soldier" style. But a fine day like today has turned out brightens and cheers us all. We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
"As to worldly riches, if you do not possess them, let them not be sought after on earth by doing evil; and if you possess them, let them by good works be paid up in heaven." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I’m telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God, and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue." - Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure
"Though I should speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, nor show to my neighbor an example of virtue, I should be of little service to him, and none to myself." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"God is communicating to the soul loving knowledge. greatly esteems having brought them to this solitude and emptiness of their faculties and operations, that He may speak to their heart, which is what He ever desires. If you only wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness (detach the soul from everything and set it free). God will feed your soul for you with heavenly food, since you are not hindering Him. When God brings the soul into that emptiness and solitude where it can neither use its faculties nor make any acts, it sees that it is doing nothing and strives to do something. Therefore it becomes distracted and full of aridity and displeasure. Although it is doing nothing, it is nevertheless accomplishing much more than if it were working, since God is working within it. The deep caverns of sense, with strange brightness, give heat and light together to their Beloved. ‘Together’ because the communication of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in the soul are made together, and are the light and fire of love." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"My burden is light, said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"The happy man needs friends... not, indeed, not make use of them, since he suffices himself, nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue, but for the purpose of a good operation, namely, that he may do good to them, that he may delight in seeing them do good, and again that he may be helped by them in his good work." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"If you do not see any good in these persons, then say nothing, but if you do see some, speak about it to honor God in them because all good proceeds from Him." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"Omit nothing which can advance his work, and not blame others for the delay." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"You say you experience great difficulty in the mission. Alas! Monsieur, there is no lot in life where there is nothing to be endured." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins." - Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
"Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum." - Samuel Adams
"He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, - to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves. It is not, I say, unfrequent to see such instances, though at the same time I esteem it a justice due to my country to say that it is not without shining examples of the contrary kind; - examples of men of a distinguished attachment to this same liberty I have been describing; whom no hopes could draw, no terrors could drive, from steadily pursuing, in their sphere, the true interests of their country; whose fidelity has been tried in the nicest and tenderest manner, and has been ever firm and unshaken. The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people." - Samuel Adams
"To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your children that they are naughty - much naughtier than most children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority. You carry so many more guns than they do that they cannot fight you. This is called moral influence, and it will enable you to bounce them as much as you please. They think you know and they will not have yet caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are not the unworldly and scrupulously truthful person which you represent yourself to be; nor yet will they know how great a coward you are, nor how soon you will run away if they fight you with persistency and judgment. You keep the dice and throw them both for your children and yourself. Load them then, for you can easily manage to stop your children from examining them. Tell them how singularly indulgent you are; insist on the incalculable benefit you conferred upon them, firstly in bringing them into the world at all, but more particularly in bringing them into it as your own children rather than anyone else's... You hold all the trump cards, or if you do not you can filch them; if you play them with anything like judgment you will find yourselves heads of happy, united, God-fearing families... True, your children will probably find out all about it someday, but not until too late to be of much service to them or inconvenience to yourself." - Samuel Butler
"What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright." - Samuel Gompers
"What we have endeavored to secure in industrial relations is industrial peace. When industrial justice prevails, industrial peace will follow. It is a result and not an end in itself." - Samuel Gompers