This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is a city to be built, the plan of which we carry in our heads, in our hearts. Countless generations have already toiled at the building of it. The effort to aid in completing it, with us, takes the place of prayer. In this sense we say, "Laborare est orare."
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We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. Thus shall we avoid even the appearance of interfering with those to whom prayer and ritual, as a mode of expressing religious sentiment, are dear. And on the other hand we shall be just to those who have ceased to regard them as satisfactory and dispensed with them in their own persons.
To understand the meaning of a great religious teacher we must find in our own life experiences somewhat akin to his. To selfish, unprincipled persons whose heart is wholly set on worldly ends, what meaning, for instance, can such utterances have as these? "You must become like little children if you would possess the kingdom of heaven;" "You must be willing to lose your life in order to save it;" "If you would be first you must consent to be last." To the worldly-minded such words convey no sense whatever; they are, in fact, rank absurdity.
Authority | Faith | Heart | Longing | Nature | Need | Religion |
Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.
Right |
So from now on the days were going to continue one after the other like this, always the same, innumerable, bringing nothing!... It was God's will. The future was a pitch-black tunnel, ending in a locked door. She gave up her music: why should she play? Who was there to listen?... She left her drawing books and her embroidery in a closet. What was the use of anything? What was the use?
There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going.
Time |
You must - do you hear me, young man? - You must work more than you are doing!
Right |
You must not think that feeling is everything? Art is nothing without form.
Right |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
If Wall Street really wants to dispose of John L. Lewis, let it invite him to a swell feed, hand him a fifty-cent cigar with a torpedo in it, and so burn off his eyebrows.
There are three things in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.
Time |
Though she had no one to write to, she had bought herself a blotter, a writing case, a pen and envelopes; she would dust off her whatnot, look at herself in the mirror, take up a book, and then begin to daydream and let it fall to her lap? She wanted to die. And she wanted to live in Paris.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
The smooth folds of her dress concealed a tumultuous heart, and her modest lips told nothing of her torment. She was in love.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity.
Time |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
Time |
Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity he among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?
Nature |