This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Here are two kinds of light, the light on the hither side of the darkness and the light beyond the darkness. We must press on through the darkness and the terror of it if we would reach the holier light beyond. We are here — no matter who put us here, or how we came here — to fulfill a task. We cannot afford to go of our own volition until the last item of our duty is discharged.
Aims | Deeds | Fate | Good | Question | Will | World | Fate | Deeds |
Beloved youth, you will have your trials and temptations through which you must pass, but there are great moments of eternity which lie ahead. You have our love and our confidence. We pray that you will be prepared for the reins of leadership. We say to you, "Arise and shine forth" and be a light unto the world, a standard to others.
There is a great and crying evil in modern society. It is want of purpose. It is that narrowness of vision which shuts out the wider vistas of the soul. It is the absence of those sublime emotions which, wherever they arise, do not fall to exalt and consecrate existence.
Difficulty | Heart | Influence | Meaning | Men | Right | Understand |
One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.
Better | Fear | Relationship | Will | World |
None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.
Play |
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Hate |
If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.
Think |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
If Wall Street really wants to dispose of John L. Lewis, let it invite him to a swell feed, hand him a fifty-cent cigar with a torpedo in it, and so burn off his eyebrows.
There was an air of indifference about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every passion; and through their manners were suave, one could sense beneath them that special brutality which comes from the habit of breaking down half-hearted resistances that keep one fit and tickle one?s vanity?the handling of blooded horses, the pursuit of loose women.
Day | Fate | God | Hate | Life | Life | Nothing | Fate | God |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again next time.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Every bachelor is a hero to some married woman.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In the duel of sex, woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.
Hate |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
One who wants to keep their yard tidy does not reserve a plot for the weeds.
Change | Civilization | Future | Global | Health | Inconvenient | Land | Security | Will |