This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"If a bank fails in China, they behead the men at the top of it that was responsible...If we beheaded all of ours that were responsible for bank failures, we wouldn't have enough people left to bury the heads." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"Imagine a man in public office that everybody knew where he stood. We wouldn’t call him a statesman, we would call him a curiosity." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"Now I am not a sort of a lawyer detecting things, but that name sounds a little phoney. When one man writes all that's in a paper, and this only had three pages outside of legal notices, why naturally he has got to make it look like he had quite a staff, so he does like these big holding companies did when they was sending wires to help them keep on holding, why they signed any name they could think of. Now there ain't no man named 0. Z. Ide. He is as synthetic as the article." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"This depression was deep, and you don't climb out of anything as quick as you fall in." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one." - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
"The two friends stood for a few moments on the windy street corner, not speaking a word, as two travelers, who have lost their way, sometimes stand and admit their perplexity in silence. (O Pioneers!)" - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
"In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return. I began to break away from Communism and to climb from deep within its underground, where for six years I had been buried, back into the world of free men." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"The last war simplified the balance of political forces in the world by reducing them to two. For the first time, it made the power of the Communist sector of mankind (embodied in the Soviet Union) roughly equal to the power of the free sector of mankind (embodied in the United States). It made the collision of these powers all but inevitable. For the world wars did not end the crisis. They raised its tensions to a new pitch. They raised the crisis to a new stage. All the politics of our time, including the politics of war, will be the politics of this crisis." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"When I started studying Reich’s works, I went through a period of enthusiasm, followed by a period of skepticism, followed by a period of just continued interest, but I think a lot of his ideas probably were sound. A lot probably were unsound. And, I’m not a Reichian in the sense of somebody who thinks he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and discovered the basic secrets of psychology, physics and everything else, all in one lifetime. But I think he has enough sound ideas that his unpopular ideas deserve further investigation. - View Quote Details on He had a great capacity to arouse irrational hatred obviously… Every physician, shoemaker, mechanic or educator must know his shortcomings if he is to do his work and make his living. For some decades, you have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. But your teachers and masters do not tell you how you really think and are; nobody dares to voice the one criticism of you which could make you capable of governing your own fate. You are “free” only in one sense: free from education in governing your life yourself, free from self-criticism." - Wilhelm Reich
"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself… I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, in the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; I find letters from God dropt in the street, and everyone is signed by God's name, and I leave them where they are, for I know that whereso'er I go others will punctually come forever and ever." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)" - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people." - Walter Bagehot
"When great questions end, little parties begin." - Walter Bagehot
"How does man become mind? Clear intelligence and clear intelligence alone. We know, then, in all that fills heaven and earth there is but this clear intelligence. It is only because of their physical forms and bodies that men are separated. My clear intelligence is the master of heaven and earth and spiritual beings. If heaven is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its height? If earth is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its height? If earth is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its depth? If spiritual beings are deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to distinguish their good and evil fortune or the calamities and blessings that they will bring? Separated from my clear intelligence, there will be no heaven, earth, spiritual beings, or myriad things, and separated from these, there will not be my clear intelligence. Thus they are all permeated with one material force. How can they be separated?" - Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an
"I don’t measure my life by the money I’ve made. Other people might, but certainly don’t." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
"History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?" - Washington Irving
"Mahomet now proceeded to execute the great object of his religious aspirations, the purifying of the sacred edifice from the symbols of idolatry, with which it was crowded. All the idols in and about it, to the number of three hundred and sixty, were thrown down and destroyed. Among these, the most renowned was Hobal, an idol brought from Balka, in Syria, and fabled to have the power of granting rain. It was, of course, a great object of worship among the inhabitants of the thirsty desert. There were statues of Abraham and Ishmael also, represented with divining arrows in their hands ; an outrage on their memories, said Mahomet, being symbols of a diabolical art which they had never practiced. In reverence of their memories, therefore, these statues were demolished. There were paintings, also, depicting angels in the guise of beautiful women. The angels, said Mahomet, indignantly, are no such beings. There are celestial hour is provided in paradise for the solace of true believers ; but angels are ministering spirits of the Most High, and of too pure a nature to admit of sex. The paintings were accordingly obliterated. Even a dove, curiously carved of wood, he broke with his own hands, and cast upon the ground, as savoring of idolatry." - Washington Irving
"No sooner does he hear any of this brothers mention reform or retrenchment, than up he jumps." - Washington Irving
"Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy." - Wendell Berry
"Business is an establishment that gives you the legal, even though unethical, right to screw the naive--right, left, and in the middle." - W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield
"Your discovery, as best as I can determine, is that there is an alternative which no one has hit upon. It is that one finding oneself in one of life's critical situations need not after all respond in one of the traditional ways. No. One may simply default. Pass. Do as one pleases, shrug, turn on one's heel and leave. Exit. Why after all need one act humanly?" - Walker Percy
"Once we deny a Higher Intelligence that plans and administrates our individual hereafters we are bound to accept the unspeakably dreadful notion of Chance reaching into Eternity." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"And there rose in her an unmastering desire to overcome her; to unmask her. If she could have felled her it would have eased her. But it was not the body; it was the soul and its mockery that she wished to subdue; make feel her mastery." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"How could one express in words these emotions of the body? Express that emptiness there? It was one's body feeling, not one's mind. To want and not to have sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have - to want and want - how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?" - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"You send a boy to school in order to make friends - the right sort." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy war and the orators who talk so much about going on, no matter how long the war lasts and what it may mean, could see a case of mustard gas - the poor things burnt and blistered all over with great mustard colored suppurating blisters, with blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying their throats are closing and they know they will choke." - Vera Mary Brittain
"He had nothing in his favor except that he was a drunkard." - Victor Hugo
"I don't know if you're familiar with the fact but Bach had approximately 20 to 30 children and I guess that goes for Mrs. Bach too." - Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum
"I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"Naturally only a few people were capable of reaching great spiritual heights. But a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would have never achieved. To the others of us, the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"On my fourth day in the sick quarters I had just been detailed to the night shift when the chief doctor rushed in and asked me to volunteer for medical duties in another camp containing typhus patients. Against the urgent advice of my friends (and despite the fact that almost none of my colleagues offered their services), I decided to volunteer. I knew that in a working party I would die in a short time. But if I had to die there might at least be some sense in my death. I thought that it would doubtless be more to the purpose to try and help my comrades as a doctor than to vegetate or finally lose my life as the unproductive laborer that I was then." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, How beautiful the world could be." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"A woman who possesses all the qualities will quite naturally not have any problem in fulfilling her obligations towards her family and quite obviously keep everybody in the family happy and satisfied. A house in which such a woman dwells is always prosperous and full of comforts and luxuries." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"For the body to perform to the optimum level it is necessary that all the doors work perfectly." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"If they have come on as citadels of the gods, if they have constituted an inspired charm as their armour, if they have gathered courage through the protections for the body and the bulwarks which they have made, render all that devoid of force." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"One, who earns leadership of the masses by working ceaselessly for people's welfare finally realizes that he has been rewarded with many added advantages." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Thy easterly regions, and thy northern, thy southerly (regions), O earth, and thy western, shall be kind to me as I walk (upon thee). May I that have been placed into the world not fall down." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"If we take the opinion of experts of that field and follow his advises there are every chance of accomplishing that work easily and without much problem. Therefore we should follow such a path that leads to happiness and where there is no fear of going astray." - Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda
"But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"The efforts of one who is unenthusiastic, weak and immersed in sorrow cannot bring out any good and he comes to grief." - Valmiki NULL
"They use baths, and moreover they have warm ones according to the Roman custom, and they make use also of olive oil. They have found out, too, a great many secret cures for the preservation of cleanliness and health. And in other ways they labor to cure the epilepsy, with which they are often troubled." - Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
"The fool sings a love song to his wife, the wise man will talk about his dog." - Turkish Proverbs
"To a good rider, right or left makes no difference." - Turkish Proverbs
"Sooner or later, Mr. Bush argued, sanctions would force Mr. Hussein's generals to bring him down, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
"Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only beau ideal of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the speculative energy." - Thomas Love Peacock
"It is more important to be free than to be happy." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins