This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
William P. Montague, fully William Pepperell Montague
No actual skeptic, so far as I know, has claimed to disbelieve in an objective world. Skepticism is not a denial of belief, but rather a denial of rational grounds for belief.
Know then, as women owe a duty--so do men. Men must be like the branch and bark to trees, which doth defend them from tempestuous rage;-- clothe them in winter, tender them in age, or as ewes' love unto their eanlings lives; such should be husbands' custom to their wives. If it appears to them they've stray'd amiss, they only must rebuke them with a kiss; or cluck them as hens' chickens, with kind call, cover them under their wing, and pardon all.
Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine
For me the problem of induction is a problem about the world a problem of how we, as we are now (by our present scientific lights), in a world we never made, should stand better than random, or coin-tossing chances changes of coming out right when we predict by inductions.
Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine
To mention Boston we use 'Boston' or a synonym, and to mention 'Boston' we use ' 'Boston' ' or a synonym. ' 'Boston' ' contains six letters and just one pair of quotation marks; 'Boston' contains six letters and no quotation marks; and Boston contains some 800,000 people.
There is a train track in the history of art that goes way back to Mesopotamia. It skips the whole Orient, The Mayas, and American Indians. Duchamp is on it. Cézanne is on it. Picasso and the Cubists are on it; Giacometti, Piet Mondrian, and so many.. ..I have some feeling about all these people – millions of them – on this enormous track, a way into history. They had a peculiar way of measuring. They seemed to measure with a length similar to their own height.. ..The idea that the thing that the artist is making can come to know for itself, how high it is, how wide and how deep it is, is a historical one, - a traditional one I think. It comes from man’s own image.
The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen's opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.
Existence | Imagination |
William Barrett, fully William Christopher Barrett
The chief movement of modernity, Kierkegaard holds, is a drift toward mass society, which means the death of the individual as life becomes ever more collectivized and externalized. The social thinking of the present age is determined, he says, by what might be called the Law of Large Numbers: it does not matter what quality each individual has, so long as we have enough individuals to add up to a large number – that is, to a crowd or mass. And where the mass is, there is truth – so the modern world believes.
In truth until within the last ten or twelve years an Irish author never thought of publishing in his own country, and the consequence was that our literary men followed the example of our great landlords; they became absentees, and drained the country of its intellectual wealth precisely as the others exhausted it of its rents. Thus did Ireland stand in the singular anomaly of adding some of her most distinguished names to the literature of Great Britain, whilst she herself remained incapable of presenting anything to the world beyond a school-book or a pamphlet; and even of the latter it is well known that if the subject of it were considered important, and its author a man of any talent or station in society, it was certain to be published in London.
Creed | Existence | Life | Life | People | Success | Truth |
Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.
Apathy | Body | Existence | Impossibility | Influence | Man | Mind | People | Prayer | Sense | Soul | Thought | Thought |
Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
It is an absolutely vain endeavor to attempt to reconstruct or even comprehend the nature of a human being by simply knowing the forces which have acted upon him. However deeply we should like to penetrate, however close we seem to be drawing to truth, one unknown quantity eludes us: man's primordial energy, his original self, that personality which was given him with the gift of life itself. On it rests man's true freedom; it alone determines his real character.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts – between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.
Blame | Enough | Existence | Heaven | Hell | Light | Little | Man | Play | Providence | Sense | Will | World |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
Congress has passed the big inheritance tax. That gets you when you’re gone. I think it’s a good law. You had had the use of the money during your lifetime, so turn it over to the government and they can do some darn fool things with it. Maybe as foolish as the children of the deceased would. It’s only one generation from a pick handle to a putter and one more from a tuxedo to a tramp.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
Now they got such a high inheritance tax on 'em that you won't catch these old rich boys dying promiscuously like they did. This bill makes patriots out of everybody. You sure do die for your country if you die from now on.
Good | Majority | Merit | Nothing | People | Thought | Time | Will | Thought |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
They got such a high inheritance tax on ’em that you won’t catch these old rich boys dying promiscuously like they did. This bill makes patriots out of everybody. You sure do die for your country if you die from now on.
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice.
Envy | Existence | Individual | Jealousy | Life | Life | Light | People | Unhappiness |
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
Look at my papa here; he's been dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand him.
Existence | Individual | Nothing |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.