This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Poverty cannot debase sturdy souls, nor riches lift up mean ones.
Some persons are exaggerators by temperament. - They do not mean untruth, but their feelings are strong, and their imaginations vivid, so that their statements are largely discounted by those of calm judgment and cooler temperament. - They do not realize that "we always weaken what we exaggerate."
Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. - What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.
Guidance | Past | Wisdom | Guidance | Instruction |
Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly a half a ton of angry pot roast!
I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.
Past |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Genius is divine perseverance. Genius I cannot claim nor even extra brightness but perseverance all can have.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
There is no future in vanilla for most companies in a flat world. A lot of vanilla making in software and other areas is going to shift to open-source communities.
Balance | Business | Global | Good | Growth | History | Past | People | Poverty | Power | Price | Size | Time | Will | World | Business | Think |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action. This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
Comparisons of one's lot with others' teaches us nothing and enfeebles the will.
Consequences | Contemplation | Conversation | Decision | Deliberation | Dread | Enough | Glory | Illusion | Life | Life | Men | Past | Poverty | Practice | Reality | Deliberation | Contemplation | Think |
Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.
Absence | Accuracy | Aid | Coincidence | Cost | Desire | History | Knowledge | Labor | Partiality | Past | Romance | Trust |
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
Think for yourself, question authority.
Consciousness | Events | Sense |
They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.
Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
It's a smile a girl could bring home to mother, if she had a mother; a smile a girl could pet like a pony, sip like a lemonade, hum like a popular tune; a smile a girl would feel safe with in a dark alley.
Past |