This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
A man in old age is like a sword in the shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed. Man is a sword; daily life is the workshop; and God the artificer; and those cares which beats upon the anvil, and file the edge, and eat in, acid-like, the inscription on the hilt - those are the very things that fashion the man.
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
One of the paradoxical lessons of the nuclear age is that at the moment when we are acquiring an unparalleled command over nature, we are forced to realize as never before that the problems of survival will have to be solved above all in the minds of men. In this task the fate of the mammoth and the dinosaur may serve as a warning that brute strength does not always supply the mechanism in the struggle for survival.
Age | Fate | Men | Nature | Problems | Strength | Struggle | Survival | Warning | Will | Fate |
Men are called fools in one age for not knowing what they were called fools for averring in the age before.
For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Age | Day | Opportunity | Youth | Youth |
Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were he to live the age of the rocks, love, and the contemplation of the Deity.
Age | Contemplation | Love | Man | Contemplation |
There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise. There is one signal instance on record where this kind of prejudice was overcome by a miracle; but the age of miracles is past, while that of prejudice remains.
Age | Despise | Men | Miracles | Past | Prejudice | Will | Truths |
One of the drawbacks of old age is that one outlives his generation and feels alone in the world. The new generations have interests of their own, and are no more in sympathy with you than you are with them. The octogenarian has no alternative but to live in the past. He lives with the dead, and they pull him down.
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
Regulatory bodies, like the people who comprise them, have a marked life cycle. In youth they are vigorous, aggressive, evangelistic, and even intolerant. Later they mellow, and in old age – after a matter of ten or fifteen years – they become, with some exceptions, either an arm of the industry they are regulating or senile.
Age | Industry | Life cycle | Life | Life | Old age | People | Youth | Youth | Old |
Age alway ough to be a myrrour for youth, for where olde age is impudent, there certainly youth must needes be shamlesse.
One age cannot be completely understood if all the others are not understood. The song of history can only be sung as a whole.
Laurence J. Peter, fully Laurence Johnston Peter
Middle age is when it takes longer to rest than to get tired.
No civilization professes openly to be unable to declare its destination. In an age like our own, however, there comes a time when individuals in increasing numbers unconsciously seek direction and taste despair.
Age | Civilization | Despair | Taste | Time |
Laurence J. Peter, fully Laurence Johnston Peter
Middle age is when you stop criticizing the older generation and start criticizing the younger one.
Age |