This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.
It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. Julius Caesar (Caesar at II, ii)
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are.
Circumstances | Good | Illusion | Life | Life | People | Power | Taste | Truth |
Edith Sitwell, fully Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
Taste |
Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen
Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realise itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of that which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in itself the whole nature of the tree, and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that History.
Abstract | Appreciation | Consciousness | Energy | Knowledge | Nature | Self | Spirit | Taste | Appreciation |
Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.
Mediocrity | Public |
Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.
Absolute | Mediocrity |
Cultivate fine taste and discrimination in your choice of things. Get a right idea of values. Material possessions that you do not need and cannot use may be only an encumbrance. Let your guiding rule be not how much but how good. A thing you do not want is dear at any price. Avoid surplus age. Choose things that express your own individuality. You must possess your things or they will possess you. Look for quality rather than quantity. Unnecessary possessions bring unnecessary care and responsibility. Excess is waste. Have an occasional stocktaking and eliminate unsparingly.
Care | Choice | Excess | Need | Possessions | Right | Rule | Surplus | Taste | Will |
It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
Mediocrity | Taste |
Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you.
Competition | Taste |
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton
The function of a genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve.
Genius | Mediocrity | Time |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see - one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.
Beauty | Glory | Means | Method | Music | Nature | Object | Pleasure | Sense | Taste | Tomorrow | World | Beauty |