This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If we do not accept the existence of a Supreme Being; that God is the source of moral law, what more do we have to offer than Marx?Â… Freedom is an eternal, God-given principle. There is no genuine happiness without freedom, nor is there any security or peace without freedom. After traveling in practically all of the free countries of the world and several times behind the Iron Curtain, I say that Marxism is the greatest evil in this world and the greatest threat to all we hold dear. Of all sad things in the world, the saddest is to see a people who have once known liberty and freedom and then lost it. I have seen the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for liberty on two unforgettable occasions. These experiences are indelibly etched on the memory of my soul.
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
Image—that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.
We have already transgressed the limit of safety, and the present disorders of our time are but precursors of other and imminent dangers. The rudder of our ship has ceased to move obedient to the helm. We are drifting on the seething tide of business, each one absorbed in holding his own in the giddy race of competition, each one engrossed in immediate cares and seldom disturbed by thoughts of larger concerns and ampler interests. Even our domestic life has lost much of its former warmth and geniality.
There is a great and crying evil in modern society. It is want of purpose. It is that narrowness of vision which shuts out the wider vistas of the soul. It is the absence of those sublime emotions which, wherever they arise, do not fall to exalt and consecrate existence.
Difficulty | Heart | Influence | Meaning | Men | Right | Understand |
To-day, in the estimation of many, science and art are taking the place of religion. But science and art alike are inadequate to build up character and to furnish binding rules of conduct. We need also a clearer understanding of applied ethics, a better insight into the specific duties of life, a finer and a surer moral tact.
Children | Heart | Life | Life | Little | Meaning | Order | Rank | Sense | Words | Teacher | Understand |
Never had he beheld such a magnificent brown skin, so entrancing a figure, such dainty transparent fingers. He stood gazing in wonder at her work-basket as if it was something extraordinary. What was her name? Where did she live and what sort of life about did she lead? What was her past? He wanted to know what furniture she had in her bedroom, the dresses she wore, the people she knew. Even his physical desire for her gave way to a deeper yearning, a boundless, aching curiosity.
Absolute | Faith | Meaning | Relationship | Truth |
None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.
Play |
She cast her eyes about her, longing for the earth to open up. Why not end it all? What was holding her back? She was free to act. And she moved forward. "Do it! Do it!" she ordered herself, peering down at the pavement.
What an awful thing life is, isn?t it? It?s like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless.
Words |
If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.
Think |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they be married, too.
Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra
I want to work with the big orchestras. I want to have a big family.
Change |
The principal thing in this world is to keep one's soul aloft.
The finest works of art are those in which there is the least matter. The closer expression comes to thought, the more the word clings to the idea and disappears, the more beautiful the work of art.
Words |
I assert that the problem submitted to the Assembly today is a much wider one. It is not merely a question of the settlement of Italian aggression.
Language |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Morality and honor are not to be confused. The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
Words |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The woman who is not pursued sets up the doctrine that pursuit is offensive to her sex, and wants to make it a felony. No genuinely attractive woman has any such desire. She likes masculine admiration, however violently expressed, and is quite able to take care of herself. More, she is well aware that very few men are bold enough to offer it without a plain invitation, and this awareness makes her extremely cynical of all women who complain of being harassed, beset, storied, and seduced. All the more intelligent women that I know, indeed, are unanimously of the opinion that no girl in her right senses has ever been actually seduced since the world began;
Words |