This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression. We have all felt the desire, at times almost victorious desire, to get away from everything and retire into a cottage in the wilderness. But we don't do it, because we are better men and women than we think we are.
Better | Character | Depression | Desire | Despondency | Men | Think |
The most infectiously joyous men and women are those who forget themselves in thinking about others and serving others. Happiness comes not by deliberately courting and wooing it but by giving oneself in self-effacing surrender to great values.
Character | Giving | Men | Self | Surrender | Thinking | Happiness |
William P. Merrill, fully William Pierson Merrill
Respectable men and women content with the good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
When women kiss it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.
Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and angels know of us.
The technical progress of industry has been a reflection of our ability to apply increasingly accurate methods of measurement to material things. The art of measuring psychological human dimensions is relatively undeveloped. To all of the complexities of management we must bring to bear infinite patience and persistence, consistency and complete sincerity.
Ability | Art | Character | Consistency | Industry | Patience | Persistence | Progress | Reflection | Sincerity | Art |
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.
George Washington Barrow or Barrows
An hour's industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve one's affairs, that a month's moaning. It sweetens enjoyment, and seasons our attainments with a delightful relish.
Cheerfulness | Enjoyment | Evil | Industry | Will | Wisdom |
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
Effeminacy is not a feminine possession any more than a masculine one. Men or women become effeminate when privilege and lack of responsibility have made them weak. The true female creature, unspoiled, is tough, persistent, and strong.
Men | Responsibility | Wisdom | Privilege |
There are but two ways of rising in the world: either by one’s own industry or profiting by the foolishness of others.
Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements - the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself - are, in the environment, failures.
To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that goes with work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.
Day | Desire | Heart | Joy | Laughter | Little | Love | Men | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Reverence | Smile | Waste | Wisdom | Work |