This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A speech belongs half to the speaker and half to the listener.
Speech |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means. Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings. But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experiences of the dormant passions lying hidden within me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
Conquest | Devotion | Force | Free will | God | Knowledge | Law | Love | Lying | Man | Nothing | Politics | Praise | Purity | Religion | Salvation | Speech | Spirit | Truth | Will | World | God |
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
One who has not found peace within himself will forever be giving speeches about peace. This world is a pulpit upon which man preaches, and there is no end to this talk! For millions of years man has been speaking this way, but he has not come forward to first find peace within himself. There is no use in making speeches. Man must acquire the qualities of God and live in that state. Only then can he speak of peace, only then can he speak the speech of God and dispense the justice of God's kingdom.
Giving | God | Justice | Man | Peace | Qualities | Speech | Will | World | God |
Nachman of Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Bratslav, Nachman from Uman NULL
The Blessed Holy One constantly constricts his godliness from utmost infinity to the most finite center point of this physical world and he sends to each person thought, speech and deed according to the person and according to the time and place. He enclothes within the thought, speech and deed, hints, in order to bring the person close to his service. Therefore a person needs to delve his mind into this and expand his consciousness in order to understand what the hints are in their details which Hashem is sending to him in the thoughts, words, and deeds of this day according to the specific circumstances he finds himself in. In business or work and in everything that Hashem sends to him each day he needs to delve and expand his mind in it, in order to understand the hints of Hashem.
Business | Circumstances | Consciousness | Day | Deeds | Mind | Order | Speech | Time | Work | World | Deeds | Business | Blessed | Understand |
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
The public is governed as it reasons; its own prerogative is foolish speech and that of its governors is foolish action.
As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.
Business | Change | Enough | Important | Man | Music | Office | Speech | Will | Business |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Making others happy, through kindness of speech and sincerity of right advice, is a sign of true greatness. To hurt another soul by sarcastic words, looks, or suggestions, is despicable. Sarcasm draws out the rebellious spirit and anger in the wrongdoer. Loving suggestions bring out the repentence in him. Repentence consists in thoroughly understanding one's own error and in abandoning it. Friendship is pure by nature. When you have a lilly in your hands, how can you crush it? When you love a person dearly, how can you hurt him, even though he may be wrong? Divine love is unlimited and infinite. When two or more persons are friends always, no matter what happens, that is an expression of divine love, of divine friendship.
Anger | Error | Kindness | Love | Right | Sarcasm | Sincerity | Soul | Speech | Spirit | Understanding | Friendship | Friends |
Hear the language, this English, double-jointed as Bedivere's limbs. It only sounds awkward. In its ability to join one concept to another as with pegs, its dependent clauses, figures of speech and cadenced alliteration, a man can say one thing five ways and yet imply a sixth; can change meaning with an inflection, a pause or a deliberate misuse of a word, can mock, scorn and flay an opponent without uttering one overt insult.
Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan
The most moving thing in a speech is always the logic. It is never flowery and flourishes. It is not sentimental exhortation; it is never the faux poetry we're all subjected to these days.
Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan
A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.
Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan
Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.
They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark diem out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
Earth | Eternal | Famous | Freedom | Glory | Memory | Men | Right | Speech | Happiness |
Pierre Abelard, aka Abailard or Abaelard or Habalaarz
Often the hearts of men and women are stirred, as likewise they are soothed in their sorrows, more by example than by words. And therefore, because I too have known some consolation from speech had with one who was a witness thereof, am I now minded to write of the sufferings which have sprung out of my misfortunes, for the eyes of one who, though absent, is of himself ever a consoler. This I do so that, in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought, or at the most but of small account, and so shall you come to bear them more easily.
Pierre Abelard, aka Abailard or Abaelard or Habalaarz
Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words.
Books | Learning | Love | Passion | Speech | Study | Happiness |
Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL
Seven marks characterize the clod and seven the wise man. The wise man does not speak before one who is greater than he in wisdom and he does not break in upon the speech of his fellow. He is not hasty to answer. He asks what is relevant and answers according to the Halakah. He speaks on the first point first and on the last point last. Where he has heard no tradition he says, "I have not heard"; and he agrees to what is true. The opposites of these attributes are the marks of the clod.