This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' mere study of books.
Taste is the faculty of judging an object or a method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called beautiful.
When the thinking man has conquered the temptations to vice, and is conscious of having done his (often hard) duty, he finds himself in a state of peace and satisfaction which may well be called happiness, in which virtue is her own reward.
There is no sin we can be tempted to commit, but we shall find a greater satisfaction in resisting than in committing.
Sin |
I must leave you to the satisfaction of your own conscience, which, though a silent panegyric, is yet the best.
When a man's desires are boundless, his labors are endless. They will set him a task he can never go through, and cut him out work he can never finish. The satisfaction he seeks is always absent, and the happiness he aims at is ever at a distance.
The true happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions; it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows; in short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theaters and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon.
Admiration | Conversation | Enemy | Enjoyment | Existence | Nature | Noise | Receive | Self | Solitude | Wants | World | Friendship | Happiness |
Among the many acts of gratitude we owe to God, it may be accounted one to study and contemplate the perfections and beauties of His work of creation. Every new discovery must necessarily raise in us a fresh sense of the greatness, wisdom, and power of God.
Discovery | God | Gratitude | Greatness | Power | Sense | Study | Wisdom | Work | Discovery |
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself, seconded by the applauses of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.
Behavior | Care | Conduct | Heart | Man | Mind | Opinion | Public | World |
Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
Henri Poincaré, fully Jules Henri Poincaré
The search for truth should be the goal of our activities; it is the sole end worthy of them. Doubtless we should first bend our efforts to assuage human suffering, but why? Not to suffer is a negative ideal more surely attained by the annihilation of the world. If we wish more and more to free man from material cares, it is that he may be able to employ the liberty obtained in the study and contemplation of truth.
Contemplation | Liberty | Man | Search | Study | Suffering | Truth | World | Contemplation |