This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Labor |
The long hour men go home, throw themselves on a miserable apology for a bed and dream of work. They eat to work, sleep to work, and dream to work, instead of working to live. The man who goes home early has time to see his children, to eat his supper, to read the newspaper. That reading the newspaper creates a desire to be alone for half an hour, and that starts a desire for an extra room, just a little extra room. That extra room is a milestone in the record of social progress. It means a carpet on the floor, a chair, an easy chair, a picture on the wall, a piano or organ . . . . Let the people demand an extra room with all that goes with it, and they will get wages enough to buy it. Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.
It is true that the Constitution of the A. F. of L., at the present time provides against the issuance of two charters to Central bodies in any one city and applies equally to white men as to colored. But the matter is seriously considered that under the circumstances, such as they obtained in New Orleans and in several other points in the South, that is, where white workingmen are organized and object to the colored workmen becoming members of the union, or to receive colored delegates from workmen's unions in the Central bodies, it would be advisable not only to form unions of colored workmen but to have some Central organization where they could have an opportunity of discussing and promoting their interests generally, while, at the same time, of course, acting in a common polity as to the best interest of all.
Association | Individual | Individuality | Labor | Rights | Association |
I have come to the conclusion . . . that it is our duty to live our lives as workers in the society in which we live, and not to work for the downfall or the destruction or the overthrow of that society, but for the fuller development and evolution of the society in which we live; to make life the better worth living.
I think the workers understand much better than anyone else the cost of industrial war. They pay the full price.... Labor will cease to engage in contests with employers as soon as labor finds it possible to induce employers to conduct the affairs of industry on a higher plane. Labor is ever eager to substitute negotiation for contest.
Civilization | Labor | People | Position | Success |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Such is our desire of abstraction from ourselves, that very few are satisfied with the quantity of stupefaction which the needs of the body force upon the mind. Alexander himself added intemperance to sleep, and solaced with the fumes of wine the sovereignty of the world. And almost every man has some art, by which he steals his thought away from his present state.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.
Everyone values things differently. In other words, they place their own value on everything that affects their lives. Also from moment to moment they may even change their values. Such as a person, who values diamonds above all else, might be willing to trade a gallon of diamonds for a drink of water to save his life in a desert. What this means is value is a relative thing depending on a need or a perceived need. Yet, how many people will argue and even violently fight over the perceived value of something or some idea only later have an entirely different view point or value.
Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.
Art | Labor | Opportunity | Art | Value |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
How to gain the advantages of society, without at the same time losing ourselves, is a question of no slight difficulty. The wise man often follows the crowd at a little distance, in order that he may not come suddenly upon it, nor become entangled with it, and that he may with some means of amusement maintain a clear and quiet pathway.
Labor | Self-confidence |
Pope Leo I, aka Pope Leo The Great, Pope Saint Leo I NULL
No one draws closer to a knowledge of the truth than he who has advanced far in the knowledge of divine things, and yet knows that something always remains for him to seek.
Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola
One of the most admirable effects of holy communion is to preserve the soul from sin, and to help those who fall through weakness to rise again. It is much more profitable, then, to approach this divine Sacrament with love, respect, and confidence, than to remain away through an excess of fear and scrupulosity.
What constitutes the primordium of the adult parasite [Rhizocephala ]? What can be injected through the narrow opening of the dart's hypodermic device? ...Imagine going through such complexity as nauplius, cyprid, and kentrogon - and then paring yourself down to just a few cells for a quick and hazardous transition to the adult stage. What a minimal bridge at such a crucial transition! ...But other species have achieved the ultimate reduction to a single cell! The dart injects just one cell into the host's interior, and the two parts of the life cyle maintain their indispensable continuity by an absolutely minimal connection - as though, within the rhizocephalan life cycle, nature has inserted a stage analogous to the fertilized egg that establishes minimal connection between generations in ordinary sexual organisms.
Day | Difficulty | Famous | Labor | Right | Struggle | Value |