This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No government as such is ever in favor of the freedom of the individual. It invariably seeks to limit that freedom, if not by overt denial, then by seeking constantly to widen its own functions.
Heart |
Hafiz, pen name of Shams-ud-din Muhammad NULL
The earth has disappeared beneath my feet, It fled from all my ecstasy. Now like a singing air creature I feel the rose keep opening.
Law |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No man is ever too old to look at a woman, and no woman is ever too fat to hope that he will look.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.
Heart |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church, as an organization, has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.
Wise |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No normal man ever fell in love after thirty when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.
Kindness |
The true leader is a different sort; he seeks effective activity which has a truly beneficent purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and holding aloft the torch of wisdom, leads the way for society to realize its genuinely great aspirations.
Law |
Color is a plastic means of creating intervals... color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony.
Heart |
Just as counterpoint and harmony follow their own laws, and differ in rhythm and movement, both formal tensions and color tensions have a development of their own in accordance with the inherent laws from which they are separately derived. Both, however, aim toward the realization of the same image. And both deal with the depth problem.
Wise |
The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons
I have shown that Swedish top students know statistically significantly less about the world than the chimpanzees.
There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.
Wise |
Never let people see the bottom of your purse or of your mind.
No one perceives where the shoe pinches but he who wears it.
Efficiency | Knowledge | Money | World |