This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.
Vain man would trace the mystic maze with foolish wisdom, arguing, charge his God, his balance hold, and guide his angry rod, new-mould the spheres, and mend the skies’ design, and sound th’ immense with his short scanty line. Do thou, my soul, the destined period wait, when God shall solve the dark decrees of fate, His now unequal dispensation clear, and make all wise and beautiful appear.
Balance | Character | Design | Fate | God | Man | Soul | Sound | Wisdom | Wise | God |
When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is truly a wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.
Abuse | Character | Envy | Man | Object | Public | Service | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wise |
The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down to the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the common sense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.
Character | Common Sense | Light | Men | Morality | Nations | Proverbs | Sense | Time | Wise | Wit | Old |
For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."
Too many follow example rather than precept; but it is safer to learn rather from precept than example. Man a wise teacher does not follow his own teaching; for it is easier to say, do this, than to do it. If then I see good doctrine with an evil life, though I pity the last, I will follow the first. Good sayings belong to all; evil actions only to their authors.
Character | Doctrine | Evil | Example | Good | Life | Life | Man | Pity | Precept | Will | Wise | Learn | Teacher |
The tongue of a man is the rudder of a ship, but the Universal Lord is its pilot.
Anahareo, given name Gertrude Moltke Bernard NULL
The tongue is, at the same, the best part of a man, and his worst; with good government, none is more useful; without it, none is more mischievous.
Good | Government | Man | Wisdom |
Hermalaus Barbarus, also Ermalao or Hermalao Barbaro
Fortunately wise is he who gains wisdom from another's mishap.
Slander is called the third tongue because it slays three persons, the speaker, the spoken to, and the spoken of.