This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Song of an Old General - When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty, He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him, He shot the white-browed mountain tiger, He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye. Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles, With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude. ...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's thunder And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron, General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance. And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault. Since this man's retirement he is looking old and worn: Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs. Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird, Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier. He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden, He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage. His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove, His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men And never would he wanton his cause away with wine. ...War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range; Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages; In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men -- And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general. So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow- Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel. He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain -- That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor. ...There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away, Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke.
Angels | Good | Knowing | News | Past | Peace | People | Speech | Time | World | Think |
Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine
Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.
Empiricist | Error | Experience | Future | Light | Myth | Past | Science | Think |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.
Past |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
People who read stories are said to have excitable brains.
Experience | Influence | Mercy | Mission | Past |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
Past |
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
Life was so short that it meant nothing at all unless it were continually reinforced by something that endured; unless the shadows of individual existence came and went against a background that held together.
Past |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
We are here just for a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you are ahead.
The relative equality of Americans before 1776 has been overwhelmed by a thousand forms of physical, mental, and economic differentiation, so that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is now greater than any time since Imperial plutocratic Rome.
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person. Two people, when they love each other, grow alike in their tastes and habits and pride, but their moral natures (whatever we may mean by that canting expression) are never welded. The base one goes on being base, and the noble one noble, to the end.
Past |
Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different.
Absolute | Existence | Experience | Past | Reason | Regard | Respect | Space | Will | Words | World | Respect |
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created. It is the inexplicable presence of the thing not named, of the overtone divined by the ear but not heard by it, the verbal mood, the emotional aura of the fact or the thing or the deed, that gives high quality to the novel or the drama, as well as to poetry itself.
I say this in dead earnest -- if, because of some fine speeches about humanity, you return this administration to office, you will be serving under an American totalitarian government before the long third term is finished.
Past |
It is precisely this "simplicity" in human intercourse that is so incomprehensible to the armored organism. Everything natural and profound is simple. The simple, grand lines of emotional expression are known to characterize the great painter, musician, poet, novelist and scientist. But the simple is alien to the armored organism. Its impulses are so complicated in their form of expression, the manner of their utterance is so muddled and contradictory that it has no organ for the simple and unequivocal emotional expression. It even lacks a sense of simplicity. Its love is mixed with hatred and anxiety. The unarmored organism loves unequivocally in love situations, hates unequivocally where hatred is legitimate, and fears unequivocally where fear is rational. The armored organism hates where it should love, loves where it should hate, and is frightened where it should love or hate. Complexity is the specific life expression of the armored person He is trapped, as it were, in the multiple contradictions of his existence. Since he approaches all experiences with his complex character structure, his experiences become equally complicated. He is amazed at the accomplishments in the area of special talent barred to him. "Genius" become a kind of abnormal monster, because he cannot understand the great simplicity in the life expression of "genius." In the consistent stripping away of the layers of character, one discovers that complexity epitomizes the defensive mechanism in its purest form. The armored person is complicated because he has a mortal terror of everything simple, straightforward and direct. I say: mortal terror. This is no literary exaggeration. The word accurately describes the process: the simple, straightforward, direct expression inescapably leads periodically to orgastic plasma convulsions.
Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
Do a good job. You don't have to worry about the money; it will take care of itself. Just do your best work — then try to trump it.