This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Stephen Sondheim, fully Stephen Joshua Sondheim
One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.
Better | Confidence | Opportunity | Rest | Story | Thinking |
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
Confidence | Control | Corruption | Law | People | Will |
A gracious man should be made up all of fire, overcoming and consuming all opposition, as fire does the stubble. All difficulties should be but whetstones to his fortitude.
Confidence | Conscience | Good |
The child awakens to a universe. The mind of the child to a world of meaning. Imagination to a world of beauty. Emotions to a world of intimacy. It takes a universe to make a child both in outer form and inner spirit. It takes a universe to educate a child. A universe to fulfill a child.
Beginning | Confidence | Future | Guidance | Life | Life | Present | Reason | Revelation | Understanding | Universe | Guidance |
I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.
Confidence | Good | Reason | Sense | Afraid |
But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.
I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them.
Belief | Change | Confidence | Little | Public |
I own it to be my opinion, that good will arise from the destruction of our credit. I see nothing else which can restrain our disposition to luxury, and to the change of those manners which alone can preserve republican government. As it is impossible to prevent credit, the best way would be to cure its ill effects by giving an instantaneous recovery to the creditor. This would be reducing purchases on credit to purchases for ready money. A man would then see a prison painted on everything he wished, but had not ready money to pay for.
Authority | Confidence | Doubt | Events | Government | Growth | Peace | People | Principles | Public | Safe | Time | Government | Crisis |
It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
Confidence | Government | Will | Government | Think |
It is left, therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges, and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
Confidence | Jealousy | Trust |
No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.
Confidence | Man | Spirit |
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Choice | Confidence | Delusion | Government | Men | Silence | Trust | Government | Parent |
Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling, for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.
Confidence | Nothing | Passion | Public | Reason |
In the arguments in favor of a declaration of rights, one which has great weight with me [is] the legal check which it puts into the hands of the judiciary.
Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? --to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these: we draw a line, but where? --public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely... It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father... What is proposed... is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis, and to strengthen parental excitement by the disfranchisement of his child while uneducated. Society has certainly a right to disavow him whom they offer, and are permitted to qualify for the duties of a citizen. If we do not force instruction, let us at least strengthen the motives to receive it when offered.
Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.
Better | Confidence | Man |
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his (sic) patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Confidence | Public | Wisdom |