This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It makes small difference to the dead if they are buried as tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.
It is not marriage that fails: it is people that fail. All that marriage does is to show people up.
The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice whether they are or not.
Formerly, people believed that the sugar cane alone yielded sugar; nowadays it is extracted from almost anything. It is the same with poetry. Let us draw it, no matter whence, for it lies everywhere, and in all things.
It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.
Observation | People | Time | Waste | Wisdom |
The majority of people are naturally straddlers. They are not in the world to pioneer but to be as happy as possible. If pioneering in a cause brings discomfort, they would rather not be among the pioneers. they would rather stand on the sidelines and, in the combat between truth and error, wait and see which proves the stronger. Though they may have a lazy faith that truth at last will win, they do not wish to lend a premature support.
Cause | Error | Faith | Happy | Majority | People | Truth | Will | Wisdom | World |
Beneath a free government there is nothing but the intelligence of the people to keep the people’s peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police or regiments of horse-guards, but by the spontaneous concert of a well-informed population, resolved that the rights which have been rescued from despotism shall not be subverted by anarchy.
Anarchy | Government | Intelligence | Nothing | Order | Peace | People | Rights | Wisdom | Government |
Aristotle said that all creative people are dissatisfied because they are looking for happiness in perfection and seeking for things that do not exist. This is one of the hopes of the world. There is no progress where people are satisfied. Discontent is perhaps the most potent challenge to improvement.
Challenge | Discontent | Improvement | People | Perfection | Progress | Wisdom | World | Happiness |
The cure for "Materialism" is to have enough for everybody and to spare. When people are sure of having what they need they cease to think about it.
It must be terrible to have to live among people and not like human beings.
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
A people living under the... threat of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It doesn't not haggle over armaments and military expenditures. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is a fine thing for the financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.
Discussion | People | War | Wisdom |