This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, edification, instruction, I use the words with their weight in them; in taking of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes and faiths. There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies, not a moment of which, once past, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron.
Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light; takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice; and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.
Beauty | Conversation | Folly | Good | Impertinence | Light | Nature | Virtue | Virtue | Wit |
One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse; but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.
Conversation | Think |
The jealous man’s disease is of so malignant a nature that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
Daring | Disease | Loneliness | People |
Something has clearly gone awry when students at prestigious institutions of higher learning cannot bring themselves to denounce Auschwitz and Treblinka. Too many Americans now shrink from appearing "judgmental" or "moralistic" - the very words themselves are now used only as pejoratives. The prevailing attitude is: "Who's to say what's right or wrong?"
Suppose you were compelled to give up - to forget all the words you know except seven - what seven words would you keep?... The most important words to keep are: You and I... without these two there would need to be no others... You, I, Give, God, Love, Beauty, Earth.
The joy which is caused by truth and noble thoughts shows itself in the words by which they are expressed.
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
You cannot eradicate disease from the human body unless you eradicate it from the body politic.
Madame La Comtesse, Diane de Vobrillac (Marie de Beausacq)
We judge others by their words and deeds, ourselves by our thoughts and our intentions.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism - The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what is used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
Character | Control | Cost | Danger | Freedom of speech | Freedom | People | Principles | Protest | Reputation | Right | Rights | Speech | Thought | Words | Danger | Afraid | Guilty | Thought |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
“Take heed how ye hear” is a genuine monition touching happy relations - a real injunction under the law of love. Let us not think it applies only to the way we hear sermons. How do you listen to the conversation of your friends? With half-parted lips ready to break in with your own opinions? With the wandering eye of one evidently uninterested? Is this the love that helps another to be his best? Do you like to be well listened to? Mind, then, the give and take of love, and be a good listener, and for truth’s sake as well as love’s.
Conversation | Good | Happy | Law | Love | Mind | Truth | Think |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
There is no mortal whom pain and disease do not reach.
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing ill.
Words |
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
The human being as a commodity is the disease of our age.