This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
The truly practical person is the one who is trying to understand and end his inner warfare.
In summer, he metamorphoses into a frog; and in the evening, at nightfall, by the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena, from the coal rafts and washerwomen's boats, he plunges headfirst into the Seine, and into total infraction of the laws of modesty and the police.
The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.
Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.
One should make good people their friends. One, who keeps good friends, benefits and lives in peace.
Deeds | Good | Intelligence | Sound | Deeds |
A man is known by his deeds. So, our deeds should be such that helps in earning respect in the society.
Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum
Of course I play only excerpts. (Pause) I don't know the whole thing that is.
Rest |
Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum
I'll be very honest with you ... I know two numbers; one is 'Clair de lune' and the other one isn't. Do you have any preferences?
Rest |
May all our energies become one and may all the good thoughts come together and may we become the mightiest amongst the mighty.
O Lord! May our ears listen to nothing but auspicious words, may our eyes see nothing but auspicious things; may we have healthy bodies and be blessed with long life.
Enemy | Self-control |
Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum
A smile is the shortest distance between two people.
We may be indifferent to the death penalty and not declare ourselves either way so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when we do, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to choose sides, for or against... Death belongs to God alone.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, How beautiful the world could be.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
The question was whether an ape which was being used to develop a poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously, the group replied that of course it would not; with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable. Then I pushed forward with the following question: ‘And what about man? Are you sure that the the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?
It is impossible for the fools to tread the path of learned ones.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Advice | Day | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Thought | Friends | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be a surprise enough for an outsider, but he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint trace of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes. Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds. I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He was a surgeon and had once been an assistant on the staff of a large hospital. So I once tried to get him to smile by describing to him how he would be unable to lose the habits of camp life when he returned to his former work. On the building site (especially when the supervisor made his tour of inspection) the foreman encouraged us to work faster by shouting: 'Action! Action!' I told my friend, 'One day you will be back in the operating room, performing a big abdominal operation. Suddenly an orderly will rush in announcing the arrival of the senior surgeon by shouting, Action! Action!'
Indispensable | Knowledge | Meaning | Nothing | Search | Wisdom | Words |