This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the small and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure.
Elegance | Force | Life | Life | Pleasure | Regulation | Taste | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Force maketh nature more violent in the return.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making your happy.
Force | Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Little | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World |
This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a true force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, an, as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
Force | Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Little | Nature | Opinion | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World | Privilege |
What we call the contagious force of an idea is the force of the people who have embraced it.
Sentimental time is a genuine, if poetical, version of the march of existence, even as pictorial space is a genuine, if poetical version of its distribution... the least sentimental term in sentimental time is the term now, because it marks the junction of fancy with action... For it is evident that actual succession can contain nothing but nows, so that now in a certain way is immortal. But this immortality is only a continual reiteration, a series of moments each without self-possession and without assurance of any other moment; so that if ever the now loses its indicative practical force and becomes introspective, it becomes acutely sentimental, a perpetual hope unrealized and a perpetual dying.
Action | Existence | Force | Hope | Immortality | Nothing | Self | Space | Time |
Men almost universally have acknowledged a Providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.
Destroy | Events | Force | Men | Providence |
Preserve your conscience always soft and sensitive. If but one sin force its way into that tender part of the soul and dwell thee, the road is paved for a thousand iniquities.
Conscience | Force | Sin | Soul |
Man masters nature not by force but by understanding.
Force | Man | Nature | Understanding |
Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast on nature.
Of all the evils to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people! No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Force | Freedom | Influence | Liberty | Means | People | Power | Public | War | Parent |
All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions. The man strongly possessed of an idea is master of all who are uncertain or wavering. Clear, deep, living convictions rule the world.
Convictions | Faith | Force | Man | Rule | Strength | Wavering | World |