This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from; the scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer, this head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.
Henry Wotton, fully Sir Henry Wotton
How happy is he born or taught, That serveth not another’s will; Whose armor is his honest thought And simple truth his utmost skill! Lord of himself, though not of lands; And having nothing, yet hath all. You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light; You common people of the skies,— What are you when the moon shall rise? An itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches. I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men’s stuff. Idle time not idly spent. Now all nature seemed in love, and birds had drawn their valentines.
Character | Happy | Nature | People | Skill | Thought | Time | Truth | Will |
I have always been subconsciously embarrassed by the “function” of Christmas and New Years - the spirit of “loving kindness,” that is presumed to come to a head like a boil once a year, when it has been magnificently concealed up to that moment!
Creation is the production of order. What a simple, but, at the same time comprehensive and pregnant principle is here! Plato could tell his disciples no ultimate truth of more pervading significance. Order is the law of all intelligible existence.
It calls in my spirits, composes my thoughts, delights my ear, recreates my mind, and so not only fits me for after business, but fills my heart, at the present, with pure and useful thoughts; so that when the music sounds the sweetliest in my ears, truth commonly flows the clearest into my mind.
Business | Heart | Mind | Music | Present | Truth | Wisdom |
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
Andrew Brock, fully Andrew Clutton Brock
The universe is to be valued because there is truth in it and beauty in it; and we live to discover the truth and the beauty no less than to do what is right. Indeed, we can not attain to that state of mind in which we shall naturally do what is right unless we are aware of the truth and the beauty of the universe.
Beauty | Mind | Right | Truth | Universe | Wisdom | Beauty |
Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth in her fair page.
Niels Bohr, fully Aage Niels Bohr
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
There is the laughter which is born out of the pure joy of living, the spontaneous expression of health and energy - the secret laughter of the child. This is a gift of God. There is the warm laughter of the kindly soul which heartens the discouraged, gives health to the sick and comfort to the dying... There is, above all, the laughter that comes from the eternal joy of creation, the joy of making the world new, the joy of expressing the inner riches of the soul - laughter that triumphs over pain and hardship in the passion for an enduring ideal, the joy of bringing the light of happiness, of truth and beauty into a dark world. This is divine laughter par excellence.
Beauty | Comfort | Energy | Eternal | Excellence | God | Health | Joy | Laughter | Light | Pain | Passion | Riches | Soul | Truth | Wisdom | World | Riches | Hardship | Beauty |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus; it move stones and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes not victories without it.
Enthusiasm | Genius | Nothing | Sincerity | Truth | Wisdom |