This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Uncertainty and expectation are the joyous of life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing or a wish discovers the folly of the chase." - William Congreve
"A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accidents than of that reason of which we so much boast." - Susan Fenimore Cooper, fully Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper
"What a noble gift to man are the forests! What a debt of gratitude and admiration we owe to their beauty and their utility! How pleasantly the shadows of the wood fall upon our heads when we turn from the glitter and turmoil of the world of man!" - Susan Fenimore Cooper, fully Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper
"All religion and all ethics are summed up in justice." - Moncure Daniel Conway
"Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies." - James Fenimore Cooper
"The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes." - Pierre Cornielle
"To win without risk is to triumph without glory. [When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph.] [We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.][To vanquish without peril is to triumph without glory.]" - Pierre Cornielle
"What destroys one man preserves another." - Pierre Cornielle
"In a noble soul, merit alone should light the flame of love." - Pierre Cornielle
"Death is the tyrant of the imagination. His reign is in solitude and darkness, in tombs and prisons, over weak hearts and seething brains. He lives, without shape or sound, a phantasm, inaccessible to sight or touch - a ghastly and terrible apprehension." - Barry Cornwall, pseudonymn for Bryan Waller Procter
"He that knows nothing doubts nothing." - Randle Cotgrave
"We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends." - Cosmus, Duke of Florence, aka Cosimo di Gherardini the Great NULL
"How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us. Stay close to the heart of nature and forget his troubled world. Remember, there is nothing wrong with nature, the trouble is in ourselves." - Parks Cousins
"Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace." - William Cowper
"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more." - William Cowper
"Wisdom and Goodness are twin born, one heart must hold both sister, never seen apart." - William Cowper
"In idle wishes fools supinely stay; be there a will, and wisdom finds a way." - George Crabbe
"Indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels." - Stephen Crane
"True justice is tempered with mercy." - Hasdai Crescas, fully Hasdai ben Abraham Crecas or Hasday Cresques
"Be always sure you are right - then go ahead." - Davy Crockett, formally David Crockett
"Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct." - Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
"None are fools always, tho every one sometimes." - Thomas D'Urfey
"Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening - those which, when shared, multiply. Our least valuable possessions, on the other hand, are those which, when divided, are diminished." - William H. Danforth
"The ability to laugh at life is right at the top, with love and communication in the hierarchy of our needs. Humor has much to do with pain; it exaggerates the anxieties and absurdities we feel, so that we gain distance and through laughter, relief." - Sara Davidson
"A friend is not so much one to whom you can go for help when you are in trouble. That has its value. But a friend is one to whom you can go when he is in trouble." - L. O. Dawson
"The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without." - Daniel Defoe, born Daniel Foe
"All human wisdom, to divine, is folly." - John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
"As a man is, so is his company." - Arthur Dent
"To establish ourselves amid perfect emptiness in a single flash is the essence of wisdom." - Dhammapada Sutra NULL
"The wise do all things well." - Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"
"A man who bows down to nothing can never bear the burden of himself." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
"Everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything... Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for the crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge... But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
"It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
"You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements." - Norman Douglas, aka George Norman Douglas
"He loseth his thanks who promiseth and delayeth." - Thomas Draxe
"The honor-seeker does not study wisdom to become wiser. Rather his goal is to show off how wise he is. This is an attribute of a fool." - Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz
"All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope." - Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
"Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit." - Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
"Those who have loved have little relish for friendship. The devotee of strong drink finds wine insipid." - Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
"Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what you don't believe yourself." - Abba Eban, born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban
"Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy." - Tyron Edwards
"Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future." - Tyron Edwards
"The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong. We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter." - Tyron Edwards
"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny." - Tyron Edwards
"The things you own end up owning you." - Tyler Durden, character created by Chuck Palahniuk in "Fight Club"