This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
And yet it is not always in our power to revive the perceptions we have felt. On some occasions the most we can do is by recalling to mind their names, to recollect some of the circumstances atr tending them, and an abstract idea of perception; an idea which we are capable of framing every instant, because we never think without being conscious of some perception which it depends on ourselves, to render genera).
Happy | Ideas | Imagination | Men | Reason |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.
Men |
Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.
Integrity | Man | Men | Relationship | Responsibility | Title | Wisdom |
My love for the alphabet, which endures, grew out of reciting it but, before that, out of seeing the letters on the page. In my own story books, before I could read them for myself I fell in love with various winding, enchanted-looking initials drawn by Walter Crane at the head of fairy tales. In Once upon a time, an o had a rabbit running it as a treadmill, his feet upon flowers. When the day came years later for me to see the Book of Kells, all the wizardry of letter, initial, and word swept over me a thousand times, and the illumination, the gold, seemed a part of the world's beauty and holiness that had been there from the start.
Indifference | Passion |
When a man does not form connections, it is going to be the point considered, but a woman whom no one seems to have failed to attach any part.
You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.
Need | Right | Struggle | Superstition | Suspicion | Talking | Theology |
Henry James said there isn't any difference between the English novel and the American novel since there are only two kinds of novels at all, the good and the bad.
Will |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
In this country — the most favored beneath the bending skies — we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child — and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.
Death | Equanimity | Eternal | Evil | Fear | Grace | Life | Life | Men | Reward | Will |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around.
Human race | Race |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, oft times by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution.
Self-interest | Slavery | Work |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very we'll within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature.
Men |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.
Future | Hope | Television | Will |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
With faith and hope and courage we hold our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the march from Capitalism to Socialism, from Slavery to Freedom, from Barbarism to Civilization.
Courage | Hell | History | Labor | Men | Need | Spirit | Struggle | Time | Will | World | Writing |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
Am I my brother's keeper? [That frequently asked question] has never been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself.