This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.
Action | Aid | Cause | Crime | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Peace is not merely a vacuum left by the ending of wars. It is the creation of two eternal principles, justice and freedom.
I. F. Stone, fully Isidor Feinstein Stone, born Isidor Feinstein
Funerals are always occasions for pious lying. A deep vein of superstition and a sudden touch of kindness always lead people to give the departed credit for more virtues than he possessed.
Credit | Kindness | Lying | People | Pious | Superstition | Wisdom |
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
Action | Good | Inevitable | Wisdom |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.
Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |
Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL
Since all justice is rightness, the justice, which brings praise to the one who preserves it, is in nowise in any except rational beings… This justice is not rightness of knowledge, or rightness of action, but rightness of will.
Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL
Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.
The meaning of life is wrapped up in what will remain after we depart. The meaning of life is to help create a better future... The meaning of life is to be mindful of the past - to always remember - in order to make certain that history’s atrocities are not repeated again and that justice will win.
Better | Future | History | Justice | Life | Life | Meaning | Order | Past | Will | Wisdom |
A goal-oriented life locates the purposed of life in the achievement of a goal, which is necessarily tied to a discrete moment in time… But we also exist across time, and when our life’s goals are fixed so narrowly on moments that are only briefly the present, we fail to do justice to the enduring aspect of human life… Moments slip away and so if life’s purpose is tied to moments. Although moments can play a part, in order to find a purpose which is truly fulfilling, we also need to find a way of living which is worthwhile in itself. Life is rarely an undiluted pleasure that our own attitudes are themselves important to our sense of well-being.
Achievement | Goals | Important | Justice | Life | Life | Need | Order | Play | Pleasure | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Time |
We can listen to the voice of the Earth as she shakes and sings her song expressing her tiredness. She is calling us to attention, to be alert, to recognize that now is the time to transform selfish thought and action to compassionate caretaking. Do we want a world of peace and harmony? Are we willing to make that peace within ourselves? Will we call it forth? It is your choice. Your thought and action make a difference.
Action | Attention | Choice | Earth | Harmony | Peace | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | Thought |
Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.