This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and of detail, is the one that must rule all observation.
Observation | Opinion | Rule | Wisdom |
Public opinion is stronger than the Legislature, and nearly as strong as the Ten Commandments.
An error is more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
All our distinctions are accidental; beauty and deformity, though personal qualities, are neither entitled to praise nor censure; yet it is so happens that they color our opinion of those qualities to which mankind have attached responsibility.
Beauty | Censure | Mankind | Opinion | Praise | Qualities | Responsibility | Wisdom | Beauty |
The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an hour's reflection to an hour's reading, and so dispirit the book into the student.
Advice | Imagination | Learning | Reading | Reflection | Scholar | Wisdom |
People who lead fulfilling lives generally have found a sense of “home” in what they do. They have a philosophy of life that connects them to a larger vision. They accept that life is a continuing challenge. More often than not, they are able to live according to their own schedules, choosing work that is interesting and complex enough to keep them engaged. They get excited about being effective and about being stretched to learn new things. They have a few good friends who understand their vision and perhaps even share common aspirations. They are not driven by urgency, competition, or the demands of the ego.
Challenge | Competition | Ego | Enough | Good | Life | Life | People | Philosophy | Sense | Vision | Work | Friends | Learn | Understand |
Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, simply known as Ali NULL
Believe me, a thousand friends suffice thee not; In a single enemy thou has more than enough.
The most effective way to influence opinion is by the selection and arrangement of the appropriate facts.
The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exist.
Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem – in my opinion – to characterize our age.
Age | Goals | Means | Opinion | Perfection |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.