This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This is the testimony of all the good books, sermons, hymns, and memoirs I read--that God's ways are infinitely perfect; that we are to love Him for what He is and therefore equally as much when He afflicts as when He prospers us; that there is no real happiness but in doing and suffering His will; and that this life is but a scene of probation through which we pass to the real life above.
Question |
Ellen Glasgow, fully Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living.
Opinion |
Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
Moreover, no one is judged from the natural man, thus not so long as he lives in the natural world, for man is then in a natural body; but everyone is judged in the spiritual man, and therefore when he comes into the spiritual world, for man is then in a spiritual body.
What we crave, what we want to see in others eyes, is that servile expression, an unconcealed infatuation with our gestures.
Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion! Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust.
The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.
One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing.
Inevitable | Inferiority | Merit | Position | Question | Right | Woman |
We who are prosperous and independent have not sufficient homogeneity to champion on the ground of a common creed, common stock, a common history, a common heritage of misfortune, the rights of the lowest and poorest Jew-peddler who flees, for life and liberty of thought, from Slavonic mobs.
But come, examine by every means each thing how it is clear, neither putting greater faith in anything seen than in what is heard, nor in a thundering sound more than in the clear assertions of the tongue, nor keep from trusting any of the other members in which there lies means of knowledge, but know each thing in the way in which it is clear.
What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine!
Democracy | Free press | Free speech | Opinion | Safe | Speech | War | World |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?
Aid | Desire | Future | People | Question | Talking | Value |
Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
Her handwriting was curious, small sharp little letters with no capitals (who did she think she was, e. e. cummings?).
Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
I think the Peace Corps is a fine thing, don't you? he said. Well, I replied, it's certainly better than War Corps.