This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"As a priest, a piece of mere church furniture at best." - William Cowper
"But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put to truth itself, that deign'd him no reply." - William Cowper
"There is nothing serious in mortality! Solomon in all his glory was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
"Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts – between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"Ain’t but one thing wrong with every one of us in the world and that’s selfishness." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"I love horses and I only ask--don't let me know which one we are eating today." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"Politics is the only sporting event in the world where they don’t pay off for second money; a man to run second in any other event in the world it’s an honor. But any time he runs second for President it’s not an honor. It’s a pity." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"Ah! the terror and the delight of that moment when first we fear" - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
"My dear, he sighed when the lights were turned on and they both looked older, it's been a mistake, our having a family and writing histories and getting middle-aged. We should have been picturesquely shipwrecked together when we were young." - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
"It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of man’s fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"Every seemingly arbitrary destructive action is a reaction of the organism to the frustration of a gratification of a vital need, especially of a sexual need." - Wilhelm Reich
"For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again, after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one. Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say!" - Wilhelm Reich
"It is not beyond actual possibilities that men from outer space have landed (or will in the future land) on earth and have begun to breed here for whatever reason they may have had." - Wilhelm Reich
"With this the [genuine] leader will cause many to turn against him. He will have robbed these many of an object to hold on to, like a bean stalk would feel robbed of comfort if you took away the supporting stick of wood." - Wilhelm Reich
"All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
"Direct and easy communications — freedom of speech in all forms and in its broadest sense — has become vital to the very survival of a civilized humanity." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
"The American child is a highly intelligent human being — characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong sense of excitement, energy, and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grown-up who manages to carry these same characteristics into adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
"The human species, although happily ridiculous at times, is still reaching for the stars." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
"Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"O Mother, to think that we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times, the awful loads and trains and boatloads of poor, bloody, and pale and wounded young men again — for that is what we certainly will, and before very long. I see all the little signs, getting ready in the hospitals, etc.; it is dreadful when one thinks about it. I sometimes think over the sights I have myself seen: the arrival of the wounded after a battle, and the scenes on the field, too, and I can hardly believe my own recollections. What an awful thing war is! Mother, it seems not men but a lot of devils and butchers butchering each other." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, whispering I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, for I could not die till I once look'd on you, for I fear'd I might afterward lose you. Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, return in peace to the ocean my love, I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, as for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, every day at sundown for your dear sake my love." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"That you are here—that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for encouraging competitors… The great poets are also to be known by the absence in them of tricks and by the justification of perfect personal candor… How beautiful is candor! All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, they scorn the best I can do to relate to them." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"This is thy hour o soul, thy free flight into the wordless, away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, night, sleep, death and the stars." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, for the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake, lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, there in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"You don't have the game you played last year or last week. You only have today's game. It may be far from your best, but that's all you've got. Harden your heart and make the best of it." - Walter Hagen, fully Sir Walter Charles Hagen
"Our generation is profoundly troubled by the problems of organized society." - Walter Rauschenbusch
"Hope is the mother of faith." - Walter Savage Landor
"Kingship is a profession which has produced both the most illustrious and the most contemptible of the human race." - Walter Savage Landor
"As a group, lemmings have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
"I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
"The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
"We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
"Hockey is a unique sport in the sense that you need each and every guy helping each other and pulling in the same direction to be successful." - Wayne Gretsky, fully Wayne Douglas Gretzky, “The Great One”
"I wasn’t naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that’s the way I’ll be as a coach." - Wayne Gretsky, fully Wayne Douglas Gretzky, “The Great One”
"Listen, everything I have in my life is because of the NHL and because of hockey, and I love the game and I loved every minute of being a player, I loved coaching, I loved being involved in the NHL." - Wayne Gretsky, fully Wayne Douglas Gretzky, “The Great One”
"I love taking chances." - Wayne Newton, "Mr. Las Vegas"
"A chick reared in hell will want to remain in hell." - Welsh Proverbs
"Better the rod that bends than one that breaks." - Welsh Proverbs
"It was a country . . . that he and his people had known how to use and abuse, but not how to preserve." - Wendell Berry
"The Ego is not the source of the Shadow and the Shadow is not the source of Ego. The Shadow does not have to be made conscious to the Ego to effect its Holy Mission. The Ego does not have to be conscious to the Shadow to effect its Holy Mission. Both Ego and Shadow are completely under the egis of the Self. The Shadow modulates…the Ego orients. The unconscious forces that make up the Ego and the Shadow are Transpersonal and Holy. They must not be appropriated by either the Ego or the Shadow and certainly not by the ego….the surface awareness. Shadow formation is never a conscious process nor does it need to be made conscious. It functions best unconsciously….just as the forces of the Ego operate best unconsciously. The Shadow can live through an individual, a family, a clan, a tribe, a community, a nation, and all of Humanity as a function of the intrinsic nature of Temporality/Manifestation/Time/Space. It is a part of Divinity’s (Self’s) Homeostasis or the Holy Love mystery of Balance. It is innate to the Wholeness or Holiness of Self." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"No one likes the fellow who is all rogue, but we'll forgive him almost anything if there is warmth of human sympathy underneath his rogueries. The immortal types of comedy are just such men." - W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield
"When life gives you lemons, make whiskey sours." - W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield
"What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the angels, that it took nothing less than touching the thread off the misty interstates and eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning." - Walker Percy
"All dreams are vexing. Let them be expunged. But let the rabbit run, the cock declaim." - Wallace Stevens
"Poet, patting more nonsense foamed from the sea, conceive for the courts of these academies, the diviner health disclosed in common forms." - Wallace Stevens