This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed." - Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton
"Western man has tried for too many centuries to fool himself that he lives in a rational world. No. There's a story about a man who, while walking along the street, was almost hit on the head and killed by an enormous falling beam. This was his moment of realization that he did not live in a rational world but a world in which men's lives can be cut off by a random blow on the head, and the discovery shook him so deeply that he was impelled to leave his wife and children, who were the major part of his old, rational world. My own response to the wild unpredictability of the universe has been to write stories, to play the piano, to read, listen to music, look at paintings - not that the world may become explainable and reasonable but that I may rejoice in the freedom which unaccountability gives us." - Madeleine L’Engle
"A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"The single woman's part in life may be a noble one; she may elevate herself and help others, but her's must always be a second place.—She is never fulfilling the part nature intended her to fulfil; but the wife and mother is the crowned queen." - Mary Eliza Haweis, aka Mrs. Hugh R. Haweis, maiden name Mary E. Joy
"When your eyes are fixed in the stare of unconsciousness, and your throat coughs the last gasping breath, as one dragged in the dark to a great precipice, what assistance are a wife and child?" - Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL
"Relationship is a mirror. Wherever you are related with a person — a wife, a husband, a friend, a lover, an enemy — a mirror is there. The wife mirrors the husband. You can see yourself there, and if you see an ugly husband, don’t try to leave your wife — the ugliness is in you. Drop that ugliness! This mirror is beautiful, and be thankful to this mirror. But stupid and cowardly people always escape and renounce; brave and wise people always live in relationship, and use it as a mirror. Living with someone is a constant mirroring around you. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror: the more distant the relationship, the mirror is not so clear." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
"Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever? " - Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
"The first thing a football coach needs when he’s starting out is a wife who’s willing to put up with a whole lot of neglect. The second thing is a five-year contract. " - Bear Bryant, fully Paul William "Bear" Bryant
"There is not a person alive who isn't going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you've lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back. " - Bear Bryant, fully Paul William "Bear" Bryant
"Do not get used to it because it is easy to become a habit, it is a powerful drug. It is in the everyday life of us, in the suffering that we try to cover it, the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the breakup of their dreams. The pain was terrible when it displays its true face, but it temptation, appealing as it is disguised as a sacrifice or self-denial or cowardice. However, the more denial, as we found a way to exist with it, with the courtship of it and turn it into a part of our lives. I do not believe it. No one wants to suffer at all. If I think I could live without pain, that would be a big step, but do not imagine that others will understand me. Yes, the truth is that no one wants to suffer, even those who are still looking for pain and sacrifice there, but they feel they are reasonable, clearly there, and they are receiving the respect of human so, husbands, neighbors, and even God. Now we do not think about it anymore; everything you need to know is how to control this world spinning, not a journey in search of pleasure, but forget their sacrifice for all, that's important. There must a soldier participating in war is to kill the enemy or not? No, he left to sacrifice for the fatherland. Having a wife wants her husband to find himself not happy how? No, she wants her husband saw how sincere she endured as to how to make him happy. There must be a husband to do because they think he will find the fully meet individual needs in the workplace? No, he's brought the sweat and tears of the fine in exchange for peace to the family. And so life there are boys abandon their dreams to please their parents, parents give their lives for their children; pain and suffering are used to justify a bring only joy: love. " - Paulo Coelho
"Playing the part of a charitable soul was only for those who were afraid of taking a stand in life. It is always far easier to have faith in your own goodness than to confront others and fight for your rights. It is always easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself; we can always say we're not hurt by the stones others throw at us, and it's only at night - when we're alone and our wife or our husband or our school friend is asleep - that we can silently grieve over our own cowardice… That's the way the human heart. People are afraid to pursue their dreams, most importantly, because they feel they are not entitled to receive it, or that they were unable to reach it. We, their hearts, to be daunted just by thinking about loved ones who would go on forever, or about the moments that should be good but it was not, or of treasures that probably should have found but buried in the ground forever. Because, when these things happen, we are suffering. " - Paulo Coelho
"A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached." - Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly
"What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother… When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?" - Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly
"The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self-two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"I wasn't born a first lady or a senator. I wasn't born a Democrat. I wasn't born a lawyer or an advocate for women's rights and human rights. I wasn't born a wife or a mother." - Hillary Rodham Clinton
"I set about fifty-five years ago (1927) to see what a penniless, unknown human individual with a dependent wife and newborn child might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"If you are well-to-do and can maintain your household, love your wife in your home according to good custom... Make her happy while you are alive, for she is land profitable to her lord. " - Ptah-hotep, aka Ptahhotpe or Ptah-Hotep NULL
"He who loves his wife as himself, and honors her more than himself, will train his children properly; he will" - Rabbinical Proverbs
"Love thy wife as thyself; honor her more than thyself. He who lives unmarried, lives without joy. If thy wife is small, bend down to her and whisper in her ear. He who sees his wife die, has, as it were, been present at the destruction of the sanctuary itself. The children of a man who marries for money will prove a curse to him." - Rabbinical Proverbs
"Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don't grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot's wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt. Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again. " - Rachel Naomi Remen
"A wife endowed with spiritual wisdom is a real partner in life. She greatly helps her husband to follow the religious path. After the birth of one or two children they live like brother and sister. Both of them are devotees of God. His servant and His handmaid. Their family is a spiritual family. They are always happy with God and His devotees. They know that God alone is their own, from everlasting to everlasting. They are like the Pandava brothers; they do not forget God in happiness or in sorrow." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"All worship and spiritual discipline are directed to one end alone, namely, to get rid of worldly attachment. The more you meditate on God, the less you will be attached to the trifling things of the world. The more you love the Lotus Feet of God, the less you will crave the things of the world or pay heed to creature comforts. You will look on another man's wife as your mother and regard your own wife as your companion in spiritual life. You will get rid of your bestial desires and" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"Even if one lives in the world, one must go into solitude now and then. It will be of great help to a man if he goes away from his family, lives alone, and weeps for God even for three days. Even if he thinks of God for one day in solitude, when he has the leisure, that too will do him good. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. But who cries for the Lord? Now and then one must go into solitude and practice spiritual discipline to realize God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"The point is, to love God even as the mother loves her child, the chaste wife her husband, and the worldly man his wealth. Add together these three forces of love, these three powers of attraction, and give it all to God. Then you will certainly see Him." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"'Woman and gold' alone is the world; that alone is m?y?. Because of it you cannot see or think of God. After the birth of one or two children, husband and wife should live as brother and sister and talk only of God. Then both their minds will be drawn to God, and the wife will be a help to the husband on the path of spirituality. None can taste divine bliss without giving up his animal feeling. A devotee should pray to God to help him get rid of this feeling. It must be a sincere prayer. God is our Inner Controller; He will certainly listen to our prayer if it is sincere." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"When I was a young man, I didn't think about having a family. My wife and I were too poor to have babies. Then all of a sudden, one came along and scared the hell out of us because we had no money. Once the baby arrives, you make do somehow. You fall in love with the baby and life adjusts itself. You find you don't need as much money as you thought. When that happens, you can ask the questions that should have come before the baby." - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
"I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary? "Somewhere haven't been in a long time!" she said. So I suggested the kitchen." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"I take my wife everywhere - but she keeps finding her way back." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was; she told me "In the lake."" - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was. She told me, In the lake." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"Recipe for a happy marriage: My wife and I always hold hands. If I let go, she shops." - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked, What's on the TV? I said, Dust!" - Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
"If we must lose wife or husband when we live to our highest right, we lose an unhappy marriage as well, and we gain ourselves. But if a marriage is born between two already self-discovered, what a lovely adventure begins, hurricanes and all." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
"You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself, it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the native ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless." - Robertson Davies
"During the fifties, for example, the American character appeared with some consistency that became a model of manhood adopted by many men: the Fifties male. He got to work early, labored responsibly, supported his wife and children and admired discipline. Reagan is a sort of mummified version of this dogged type. This sort of man didn't see women's souls well, but he appreciated their bodies; and his view of culture and America's part in it was boyish and optimistic. Many of his qualities were strong and positive, but underneath the charm and bluff there was, and there remains, much isolation, deprivation, and passivity. Unless he has an enemy, he isn't sure that he is alive. The Fifties man was supposed to like football, be aggressive, stick up for the United States, never cry, and always provide.... During the sixties, another sort of man appeared. The waste and violence of the Vietnam war made men question whether they knew what an adult male really was. If manhood meant Vietnam, did they want any part of it? Meanwhile, the feminist movement encouraged men to actually look at women, forcing them to become conscious of concerns and sufferings that the Fifties male labored to avoid." - Robert Bly
"I have no wife or children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from, a common theatre or scene." - Robert Burton
"And verily, a woman need know but one man well, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them." - Helen Rowland
"When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they don't understand one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to." - Helen Rowland
"A wolf won't eat wolf. ( People of the same group, occupation, interests live, or should live, together in amity)" - Russian Proverbs
"Do not praise yourself while going into battle; praise yourself coming out of battle. (Do not rejjoice till you are sure that your difficulties are at an end)" - Russian Proverbs
"Your tongue will get you to Kiev." - Russian Proverbs
"I would take a bad script and a good director any day against a good script and a bad director." - Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis
"Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes