This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
I think that it can be assumed that no adults are ever really 'shocked' - that being shocked is always a pose.
But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.
Ability | Action | Argument | Intelligence | Men | Need | Thought | Afraid | Thought |
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.
Action | Attention | Character | Competition | Enemy | Enjoyment | Foresight | Industry | Life | Life | Mind | Pleasure | Present | Prudence | Prudence | Wealth | World | Youth | Youth |
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
Ability | Compassion | Greatness |
They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.
Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |
We learn how to close the gap between what we are and what we could become. But what if we are yet to identify what we could become? Frankl noted that the modern person has almost too much freedom to deal with. We no longer live through instinct, but tradition is no guide either. This is the existential vacuum, in which the frustrated will to meaning is compensated for in the urge for money, sex, entertainment, even violence. We are not open to the various sources of meaning, which according to Frankl are: 1 Creating a work or doing a deed. 2 Experiencing something or encountering someone (love). 3. The attitude we take to unavoidable suffering.
Obligation | Wealth |
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
If someone offered you a pill that would make you permanently happy, you would be well advised to run fast and run far. Emotion is a compass that tells us what to do, and a compass that perpetually stuck on north is worthless.
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments... I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively.
Noble the house was, nor seemed built for war, but rather like the work of other days, when men, in better peace than now they are, had leisure on the world around to gaze, and noted well the past times' changing ways; and fair with sculptured stories it was wrought, by lapse of time unto dim ruin brought.
We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
Ability |