This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Already complaints are multiplying on every hand that that most gracious quality of all that adorns the age of childhood — the quality of reverence — is fast fading from our schools and households; that the oldtime respect for father and mother is diminished, and grown rarer and more uncertain.
Consideration | Custom | Force | Public |
If you desire information on some point of law, you are not likely to ponder over the ponderous tomes of legal writers in order to obtain the knowledge you seek, by your own unaided efforts.
Excellence | Law | Man | Order | Qualities | Righteousness | Universe | Will | Excellence |
King Hussein was one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, a brave soldier who fought for peace, a clever man, warm-hearted and the symbol of good neighborly relations,
One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?
Appearance | Change | Character | Day | Disgrace | Heart | Important | Injustice | Injustice | Joy | Lesson | Pain | Parents | Peace | Play | Resolution | Understanding | Circumstance | Teacher |
Here are two kinds of light, the light on the hither side of the darkness and the light beyond the darkness. We must press on through the darkness and the terror of it if we would reach the holier light beyond. We are here — no matter who put us here, or how we came here — to fulfill a task. We cannot afford to go of our own volition until the last item of our duty is discharged.
Aims | Deeds | Fate | Good | Question | Will | World | Fate | Deeds |
Beloved youth, you will have your trials and temptations through which you must pass, but there are great moments of eternity which lie ahead. You have our love and our confidence. We pray that you will be prepared for the reins of leadership. We say to you, "Arise and shine forth" and be a light unto the world, a standard to others.
With independence won, another body of men assembled; and under the inspiration of heaven, they too drafted a document, probably the greatest instrument ever struck off at a given time by the mind of man: the Constitution of the United States.
There is a great and crying evil in modern society. It is want of purpose. It is that narrowness of vision which shuts out the wider vistas of the soul. It is the absence of those sublime emotions which, wherever they arise, do not fall to exalt and consecrate existence.
Difficulty | Heart | Influence | Meaning | Men | Right | Understand |
To-day, in the estimation of many, science and art are taking the place of religion. But science and art alike are inadequate to build up character and to furnish binding rules of conduct. We need also a clearer understanding of applied ethics, a better insight into the specific duties of life, a finer and a surer moral tact.
Children | Heart | Life | Life | Little | Meaning | Order | Rank | Sense | Words | Teacher | Understand |
To understand the meaning of a great religious teacher we must find in our own life experiences somewhat akin to his. To selfish, unprincipled persons whose heart is wholly set on worldly ends, what meaning, for instance, can such utterances have as these? "You must become like little children if you would possess the kingdom of heaven;" "You must be willing to lose your life in order to save it;" "If you would be first you must consent to be last." To the worldly-minded such words convey no sense whatever; they are, in fact, rank absurdity.
Authority | Faith | Heart | Longing | Nature | Need | Religion |
None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.
Play |
Noble characters and pure affections and happy scenes are very comforting things. They're a refuge from life's disillusionments.
Heart |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
Heart |
Why, it was the romances she had read in her youth! It was Walter Scott back again! She seemed to catch, through the mist, the sound of the Scottish bagpipes skirling among the heather. And the memory of the book helping her to understand the libretto, she followed each successive stage in the plot, while all the time a host of vague, indefinable thoughts came thronging in upon her, only to take flight at every 'crescendo' of the music.
Heart |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
How far the gentlemen of dark complexion will get with their independence, now that they have declared it, I don?t know. There are serious difficulties in their way. The vast majority of people of their race are but two or three inches removed from gorillas: it will be a sheer impossibility, for a long, long while, to interest them in anything above pork-chops and bootleg gin.
If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.
Think |