This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
Evil | Father | Good | Love | Mother | Promise | Child | Think |
W. D. Ross, fully Sir William David Ross
There is probably no act, for instance, which does good to anyone without doing harm to someone else, and vice versa.
Consideration | Duty | Gratitude | Justice | Need | People | Promise | Recompense | Self-improvement |
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
But then what should I have done with you, Nina, how should I have disposed of the store of sadness that had gradually accumulated as a result of our seemingly carefree, but really hopeless meetings?
Disguise | Dreams | Evil | Life | Life | Promise | Reality | Thought | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the size of human suffering is absolutely relative.
Ability | Art | Day | Enough | Friend | Humor | Life | Life | Promise | Sense | Smile | Story | Weapons | Will | Work | Art |
Dharma is so called because it sustains or supports society (from the root dhri meaning to support). The people of a country are held together and sustained by Dharma.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
We quarrel unfortunate for us to dispense with pity.
Promise |
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. One who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach.
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two, and sleep's again.
Promise |
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou com'st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee.
Promise |
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Promise | Selfishness |
The sun was lying when he lay so sweet and calm amidst the serenity of the night.
And then there was pain and blood and tears, all those things that cause suffering and revolt, the killing of Françoise, the killing of Fouan, vice triumphing, and the stinking, bloodthirsty peasants, vermin who disgrace and exploit the earth. But can you really know? Just as the frost that burns the crops, the hail that chops them down, the thunderstorms which batter them are all perhaps necessary, maybe blood and tears are needed to keep the world going. And how important is human misery when weighed against the mighty mechanism of the stars and the sun? What does God care for us? We earn our bread only by dint of a cruel struggle, day in, day out. And only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play.
Good | Life | Life | People | Promise | Right | Thought | Will | Thought |