This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.
Three out of five of the Four Hundred [eminent individuals of the twentieth century] had serious school problems. In order of importance, their dissatisfactions were: with the curriculum; with dull irrational or cruel teachers; with others students who bullied, ignored, or bored them; and with school failure.
In shamanism there is ultimately no distinction between helping others and helping yourself. By helping others shamancially, one becomes more powerful, self-fulfilled, and joyous. Shamanism goes far beyond a primarily self-concerned transcendence of ordinary reality. It is a transcendence for a broader purpose, the helping of mankind.
Distinction | Mankind | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Self | Wisdom |
There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.
Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone an rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.
Emotions | Eternal | Language | Music | Popularity | Sound | Will | Wisdom | Words |
Somehow feminists who want to transform our culture, not just adapt to it, have to convince young women that embracing feminism does not mean embracing victimhood, that you can be for others and still be for yourself, that you can “make it” in bed and in the marketplace, that women can indeed be visible without subjugating their souls behind traditional female - or male - masks.
Crawford Greenewalt, fully Crawford Hallock Greenewalt
Behind every advance of the human race is a germ of creation growing in the mind of some long individual. An individual whose dreams waken him in the night while others lie contentedly asleep.
Dreams | Human race | Individual | Mind | Race | Wisdom |
To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Part of our good consists in the endeavor to do sorrows away, and in the power to sustain them when the endeavor fails, to bear them nobly, and thus help others to bear them as well.
It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear dullness to maturity; and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony places of the world, and some may be choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation.
Chance | Genius | Glory | Nature | Struggle | Will | Wisdom |
The Golden Rule exists in each of the world's major religions... Hinduism: Do naught to others which, if done to thee, would cause thee pain: this is the sum of duty. Buddhism: A clansman [should] minister to his friends and familiars... by treating them as he treats himself. Confucianism: The Master replied: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others." Taoism: To those who are good to me, I am good; and to those who are not good to me, I am also good. And thus all get to be good. To those who are sincere with me, I am sincere; and to those who are not sincere with me, I am also sincere. And thus all get to be sincere. Zorastrianism: Whatever thou dost not approve for thyself, do not approve for anyone else. When thou hast acted in this manner, thou art righteous. Judaism: Take heed to thyself, my child, in all thy works; and be discreet in all thy behavior. And what thou thyself hatest, do to no man. Christianity: All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. Greek Philosophy: Do not do to others what you would not wish to suffer yourself. Treat your friends as you would want them to treat you.
Art | Behavior | Cause | Duty | Golden Rule | Good | Man | Men | Pain | Philosophy | Rule | Wisdom | World | Art | Golden Rule | Friends |
For the most part, we should pray rather in aspiration than petition, rather by hoping than requesting; in which spirit also we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it.
Aspiration | Spirit | Wisdom | Aspiration |
Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt of others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.
Attention | Authority | Contempt | Conversation | Deference | People | Superiority | Vehemence | Wisdom |
Money spent on ourselves may be a millstone about the neck; spent on others it may give us wings like eagles.