This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne
Not years but experiences age us; hence man would be the unhappiest of creatures were he a diligent pupil of experience. That each new generation and each new era starts out from the cradle is what keeps mankind eternally young.
Much has been said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.
Action | Age | Danger | Difficulty | Mankind | Old age | Power | Strength | Time | Wisdom | Wise | Old |
If the memory is more flexible in childhood, it is more tenacious in mature age; if childhood has sometimes the memory of words, old age has that of things, which impress themselves according tot he clearness of the conception of the thought which we wish to retain.
Age | Childhood | Memory | Old age | Thought | Wisdom | Words | Old | Thought |
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Age | Enough | Family | Father | Isolation | Mother | Nature | People | Security | Wisdom | World |
Karl Bühler, fully Karl Ludwig Bühler
By the time the child can draw more that scribble, by the age of four or five years, an already well-formed body of conceptual knowledge formulated in language dominates his memory and controls his graphic work. Drawings are graphic accounts of essentially verbal processes. As an essentially verbal education gains control, the child abandons his graphic efforts and relies almost entirely on words. Language has first spoilt drawing and then swallowed it up completely.
Age | Body | Control | Education | Knowledge | Language | Memory | Time | Wisdom | Words | Work | Child |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
In these days half our diseases come from neglect of the body, and the over work of the brain. In this railway age the wear and tear of labor and intellect go on without pause or self-pity. We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more, from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles; we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves.
Age | Body | Labor | Neglect | Pity | Self | Strength | Wisdom | Work | Intellect |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
It is not by gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart.
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.
Chinese Family Planning Center Pamphlet NULL
Marriage is not a finished affair. No matter to what age you live, love must be continuously consolidated. Being considerate, thoughtful and respectful without ulterior motives is the key to a satisfactory marriage.
Maurice Chevalier, fully Maurice Auguste Chevalier
Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.
Many adults draw childlike drawings and many children give up drawing at age nine or ten. These children grow up to become the adults who say they never could draw and can't even draw a straight line. The same adults, however, if questioned, often say that they would have liked to learn to draw well, just for their own satisfaction at solving the drawing problems that plagued them as children. But they felt that they had to stop drawing because they couldn't learn how to draw.