This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The acceptance of truth that joy and sorrow, laughter and tears are not confined to any particular time, place or people, but are universally distributed, should make us more tolerant of and more interested in the lives of others.
Acceptance | Joy | Laughter | People | Sorrow | Tears | Time | Truth | Wisdom |
Joshua Reynolds, fully Sir Joshua Reynolds
The mind is but barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
"Keep aloof from sadness," says an Icelandic writer, "for sadness is a sickness of the soul." Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.
Good | Life | Life | Mind | Misfortune | Object | Sadness | Smile | Soul | Wisdom |
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Commonly called Alfred Lord Tennyson
‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise.
Faith, love and sorrow are three elements that mysteriously blend in human experience, each having its own tale to tell of the relation which we bear to the Supreme Being.
Experience | Faith | Love | Sorrow | Wisdom |
Not to sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
To brood over our sorrow is to embitter our grief.
Obafemi Awolowo, fully Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, commonly known as Awo
After rain comes sunshine; after darkness comes the glorious dawn. There is no sorrow without its alloy of joy, there is no joy without its admixture of sorrow. Behind the ugly terrible mask of misfortune lies the beautiful soothing countenance of prosperity. So, tear the mask!
Darkness | Dawn | Joy | Misfortune | Prosperity | Sorrow | Ugly | Misfortune |
J. A. C. Brown, fully James Alexander Campbell Brown
Most people want to feel that issues are simple rather than complex, want to have their prejudices confirmed, want to feel that they “belong” with the implication that others do not, and need to pinpoint an enemy to blame for their frustrations. This being the case, the propagandist is likely to find that his suggestions have fallen on fertile soil so long as he delivers his message with an eye to the existing attitudes and intellectual level of his audience.
There do remain dispersed in the soil of human nature diverse seeds of goodness, of benignity, of ingenuity, which being cherished, excited, and quickened by good culture, do by common experience thrust out flowers very lovely, and yield fruits very pleasant of virtue and goodness.
Experience | Good | Human nature | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Virtue | Virtue |
The merits of each one depends not directly on what sort of soil God has given him to cultivate, but on what use he makes of what God has given.
A waste far more worthy of our tears is the enormous energy within us that never gets channeled, the love that is never expressed, the kindness that never surfaces, the compassion and tenderness that are never awakened.
Compassion | Energy | Kindness | Love | Tears | Tenderness | Waste |