This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lorenz Oken, born Lorenz Okenfuss
The universe is the language of God.
Differences are likely to lead to... the world's advancement, and add to the charms of social intercourse. Nothing leads to boredom more than uniformity of manners and thoughts.
Manners | Nothing | Uniformity | World |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is “faithful in that which is least” is dependable in all the world.
Amusements | Conscience | Discipline | Good | Manners | Nothing | Trifles | Work | World |
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then be fairly inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.
Age | Character | Education | Family | Manners | Men | Opinion | Society | Society |
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Let a man use great reverence and manners to himself.
Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.
The basis of good manners is self-reliance.
Good | Manners | Self | Self-reliance |
All things are engaged in writing their history... Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of its fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent.
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.
Though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was a first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry.
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. The very hope of man. The thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization.
God | Heart | Hope | Man | Mankind | Manners | Mercy | Nations | Religion | Risk | God |
No manners are finer than even the most awkward manifestations of good will to others... Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: `I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’
Government | Language | Words |
William Jones, fully Sir William Jones of Nayland, aka Trinity Jones
The Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been written.
Age | Beauty | Bible | Books | History | Important | Language | Morality | Poetry | Bible |