This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
Criticism | Defects | Heart | Men | Repose | Torture | Work |
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.
Perseverance | Will |
There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
The head learns new things, but the heart forever more practices old experiences.
If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings, only the iron in God's sand is gold!
Blessings | Day | God | Gold | Heart | Power | Search | Will |
Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
Hateful to me even as the gates of Hades is he that hideth one thing in his heart and uttereth another.
Heart |
All your strength is in your union, all your danger in discord.
Tell me not in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust thou art, to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow is our destined end or way; but to act, that each to-morrow find us farther than today... Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act - act in the living Present! Hear within, and God o’erhead. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints in the sands of time... Let us then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.
Art | Enjoyment | Fate | Future | God | Grave | Heart | Labor | Life | Life | Men | Past | Present | Sorrow | Soul | Time | Trust | God | Learn |
It isn’t a population that demands war… it is the leaders who demand war and who prepare the population for war… If there was a spontaneous urge to kill, why would we need a draft!
Enthusiasm is always connected with the senses, whatever be the object that excites it. The true strength of virtue is serenity of mind, combined with a deliberate and steadfast determination to execute her laws. That is the healthful condition of the moral life; on the other hand, enthusiasm, even when excited by representation of goodness, is a brilliant but feverish flow which leaves only exhaustion and languor behind.
Determination | Enthusiasm | Life | Life | Mind | Object | Serenity | Strength | Virtue | Virtue |
The quality of impeccability entails realizing how precious life is, even though it is transient, and how each of our actions and words does count, affecting all beings around us in a profound way. There is nothing inconsequential in this universe, and we need to personally respect this fact and act in accordance with it.
Life | Life | Need | Nothing | Respect | Universe | Words | Respect |
There are times in the history of men and nations, when they stand so near the vale that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings, an feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite.