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
Experience is like a pitiless beauty. Years pass before you win her, and by the time she finally surrenders, you have both grown old and no longer need one another.
A brilliant mind without faith is like a beautiful face without eyes.
J.M. Barrie, fully Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet
We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.
Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Ability | Character | Individual | Need | Wisdom |
J.M. Barrie, fully Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet
If you have it, you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have
Anthony of Sourozh, fully Archbishop Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh NULL
People are much greater and stronger than we imagine, and when unexpected tragedy comes we see them often grow to a stature that is far beyond anything we imagined. We must remember that people are capable of greatness, of courage, but not in isolation. They need the conditions of solidly linked human unit in which everyone is prepared to bear the burden of others.
Courage | Greatness | Isolation | Need | People | Tragedy | Wisdom |
Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland
Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
Discretion | Need | Nothing | Silence | Wisdom |
We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the assurance of strength there is strength; and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers.
Cause | Distrust | Faith | Life | Life | Self | Strength | Unhappiness | Wisdom |
A contemplative life has more the appearance of a life of piety than any other; but it is the divine plan to bring faith into activity and exercise.
To keep from gravitating toward genocidal conflict, we must stop demanding perpetual progress. For quiet nonpolitical reasons, governments and politicians cannot achieve the paradise they habitually promise. Political leaders who continue to dangle before their constituents enticing carrots that are becoming unattainable hasten the erosion of faith in political processes. Circumstances have ceased to be what they were when the once-New World’s myth of limitlessness made sense.
Circumstances | Faith | Myth | Paradise | Progress | Promise | Quiet | Sense | Wisdom | World |