This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's, And many an orphan's water-standing eye-- Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate, And orphans for their parents' timeless death,-- Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe. All many be well.
But that your royal pleasure must be done, this act is as an ancient tale new told, and in the last repeating troublesome, being urged at a time unreasonable. The Life and Death of King John, Act iv, Scene 2
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy god's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, o cromwell, thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king; and,-prithee, lead me in: there take an inventory of all I have, to the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all i dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 2
Do every day or two something for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
In the Platonic sense, ideas were the patterns according to which the Deity fashioned the phenomenal or ectypal world.
Distinction | Knowledge | Object | Philosophy | Science | Thinking |
Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
People |
The most general elements and workings of the mind are all that the teacher absolutely needs to be acquainted with for his purposes.
We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
Human nature | Nature |
Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it -- yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon Him.
This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with which it stands related. Its significance and framing give it the chief part of its value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy, its glow and gilding vanish. The old man, sick with an insidious internal disease, may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever, but he knows his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it; and the knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death and the worm is their brother, and they turn to a mere flatness.
Art | Cost | History | Human nature | Law | Mission | Nations | Nature | Need | Time | Work | Art |
With the civilized man contentment is a myth. From the cradle to the grave he is forever longing and striving after something better, an indefinable something, some new object yet unattained.
God grant indeed thy words are not for nought! Then shalt thou save me, since for many a day to such a dreadful life I have been brought: nor will I spare with all my heart to pay what man soever takes my grief away; ah! I will love thee, if thou lovest me but well enough my saviour now to be.
Care | Day | Fear | Hate | Hope | Labor | Life | Life | Little | Maxims | Men | Nothing | Pain | People | Rest | Time | Will |
If our houses, or clothes, our household furniture and utensils are not works of art, they are either wretched makeshifts, or, what is worse, degrading shams of better things.
Vision |