This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
Take away the moral argument: persuade men that when ascribing to the Deity justice and mercy they are speaking of qualities generically distinct from those which exist among mankind -- qualities which we are altogether unable to conceive, and which may be compatible with acts that men would term grossly unjust and unmerciful: tell them that guilt may be entirely unconnected with a personal act, that millions of infants may be called into existence for a moment to be precipitated into a place of torment, that vast nations may live and die, and then be raised again to endure a never-ending punishment, because they did not believe in a religion of which they had never heard, or because a crime was committed thousands of years before they were in existence: convince them that all this is part of a transcendentally perfect and righteous moral scheme, and there is no imaginable abyss to which such a doctrine will not lead. You will have blotted out those fundamental notions of right and wrong which the Creator has engraven upon every heart; you will have extinguished the lamp of conscience; you will have taught men to stifle the inner voice as a lying witness, and to esteem it virtuous to disobey it. But even this does not represent the full extent of the evil.
Character | Experience | Important | Success | Intellect |
Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL
In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
It is not national interests we are upholding — we claim that the interests of socialism, the interests of world socialism, rank higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state. We are defenders of the socialist fatherland.
Original thoughts can be understood only in virtue of the unoriginal elements which they contain.
Courage |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Materialism is the recognition of "objects in themselves", or outside the mind; ideas and sensations are copies of images of those objects.
Bourgeoisie | Character | Means | Necessity | Rule | System |
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
No one can any longer write in the fat style of Strauss. That was killed by Stravinsky. He stripped the body of much of its clothes. Music is the craft of building structures with sound and that is what Stravinsky represents.
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
Just like a man grieving because he has recently lost in his dreams some thing that he had never had in reality, or hoping that tomorrow he would dream that he found it again. That is how mathematics is created; it has its fatal flaw.
Character | Conscience | Emotions | Family | History | Individual | Magic | Mind | Work | World |
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
Then slid up my arms that were waiting, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her ??tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent eyes of twilight-neither more nor less than the most of the cheap whores. Nymphets. Why imitate them-while between the complaining we die
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
The color of one's creed, neckties, eyes, thoughts, manners, speech, is sure to meet somewhere in time of space with a fatal objection from a mob that hates that particular tone. And the more brilliant, the more unusual the man, the nearer he is to the stake. Stranger always rhymes with danger. The meek prophet, the enchanter in his cave, the indignant artist, the nonconforming little schoolboy, all share in the same sacred danger. And this being so, let us bless them, let us bless the freak; for in the natural evolution of things, the ape would perhaps never have become man had not a freak appeared in the family.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
At one time, the earth was supposed to be flat. Well, so it is, even today, from Paris to Asnieres. But that fact doesn't prevent science from proving that the earth as a whole is spherical. No one nowadays denies it. Well... we are still at the stage of believing that life itself is flat, the distance from birth to death. Yet the probability is that life, too, is spherical and much more extensive and capacious than the hemisphere we know.
The elimination of inner disorder takes place in the lives of those who are interested in being truly creative, vital, and passionate whole human beings, and who recognize that inner anarchy and chaos drains energy and manifests in shabby, shoddy behavior in society. To be attentive requires tremendous love of living. It is not for those who choose to drift through life or for those who feel that charitable acts in society justify ugly inward ways of being. The total revolution we are examining is not for the timid or the self-righteous. It is for those who love truth more than pretense. It is for those who sincerely, humbly want to find a way out of this mess that we, each one of us, have created out of indifference, carelessness, and lack of moral courage.
Courage | Enough | Life | Life | Mind | Will | Crisis | Old |
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
The will to excel and the will to win, they endure. They are more important than any events that occasion them.
Strength |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
Dependence | Strength |
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
Character | Commitment |
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there?
Strength |