This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
When in a room only lit by a candle and the wind blows, you can either enjoy the breeze or loath the darkness.
Darkness |
All religions promise a reward… for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.
Heart | Promise | Reward | Understanding | Will |
When our learning exceeds our deeds we are like trees whose branches are many but whose roots are few: the wind comes and uproots them... But when our deeds exceed our learning we are like trees whose branches are few but whose roots are many, so that even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against them, they would be unable to move them.
Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy Bussy-Rabutin
Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty - let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only - those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something may be learnt.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows over it.
We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.
Promise |
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
The preservation of peace and the improvement of the lot of all people require us to have faith in the rationality of humans. If we have this faith and if we pursue understanding, we have not the promise but at least the possibility of success. We should not be misled by promises. Humanity in all its history has repeatedly escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth. Total security has never been available to anyone. To expect it is unrealistic; to imagine that it can exist is to invite disaster.
Faith | History | Humanity | Improvement | Peace | People | Promise | Rationality | Security | Success | Understanding |
Sum up at night what thou hast done by day, and in the morning what thou hast to do; dress and undress thy soul; mark the decay or growth of it. If with thy watch that too be down, then wind up both. Since thou shalt be most surely judged, make thine accounts agree.
Let me but live from year to year, with forward face and unreluctant soul; not hurrying to, nor turning from, the goal; not mourning for the things that disappear in the dim past, nor holding back in fear from what the future veils; but with a whole and happy heart, that pays its toll to Youth and Age, and travels with cheer. So let the way wind up the hill or down o’er rough and smooth, the journey will be joy: still seeking what I sought when but a boy, new friendship, high adventure, and a crown, my heart will keep the courage of the quest, and hope the road’s last turn will be the best.
Adventure | Age | Courage | Fear | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Journey | Joy | Mourning | Past | Soul | Will | Youth | Youth |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
These motions everywhere in nature must surely be the circulations of God. The flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the roving wind – whence else their infinite health and freedom? I can see nothing so proper and holy as unrelaxed play and frolic in this bower God has built for us.
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown.
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest, from which the bird has flown.
Men in their generations are like the leaves of the trees. The wind blows and one year's leaves are scattered on the ground; but the trees burst into bud and put on fresh ones when the spring comes round.
Men |