This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Joshua Reynolds, fully Sir Joshua Reynolds
We never are satisfied with our opinions, whatever we may pretend, till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle forever; we endeavor to get men to come to us, when we do not go to them.
A good reputation is more valuable than money.
Good | Money | Reputation | Wisdom |
Exercise, temperance, fresh air, and needful rest are the best of all physicians.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
Lost wealth may be restored by industry, the wreck of health regained by temperance, forgotten knowledge restored by study, alienated friendship smoothed into forgetfulness, even forfeited reputation won by penitence and virtue. But who ever looked upon his vanished hours, recalled his slighted years, stamped them with wisdom, or effaced from Heaven's record the fearful blot of wasted time?
Forgetfulness | Health | Heaven | Industry | Knowledge | Reputation | Study | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth | Wisdom | Friendship |
Whatever of goodness emanates from the soul, gathers its soft halo in the eyes; an if the heart be a lurking-place of crime, the eyes are sure to betray the secret. A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent, a kind eye makes contradiction assent, an enraged eye makes beauty a deformity; so you see, forsooth, the little organ plays no inconsiderable, if not a dominant, part.
Beauty | Contradiction | Crime | Heart | Little | Silence | Soul | Wisdom | Beauty |
George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala
Esteem is the harvest of a whole life spent in usefulness; but reputation is often bestowed upon a chance action, and depends most on success.
Action | Chance | Esteem | Life | Life | Reputation | Success | Usefulness | Wisdom |
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
We are not speaking of the perfection of life, forces, and forms as increasing or decreasing according to the degrees of extension or continuity, because these degrees are generally known; but as ascending or descending according to the degrees of ascent, or discrete (discontinuous) degrees, can be but little known from things visible in the natural world.
Two weeks before his death, a friend asked him half-jokingly if he had discovered any meaning in life. 'Yes,' he replied, ' there is a meaning, at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.'
Death | Friend | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Wisdom | Words |
It is the little things in life that are the sublime things. It is the minor parts of the great drama which make up the whole. The handclasp, the smile, the words of confidence or encouragement; these are the strength and bulwark of society, business, religion - and home life. Without them, there would be no trust; without trust, our world would collapse.
Business | Confidence | Life | Life | Little | Religion | Smile | Society | Strength | Trust | Wisdom | Words | World |