This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof
Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.
Age | Beauty | Law | Light | Old age | Size | Wisdom | Worth |
The real object of education is to give children resources that will endure as long as life endures; habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy; occupation that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and death less terrible.
Age | Children | Death | Destroy | Education | Life | Life | Object | Occupation | Solitude | Time | Will | Wisdom |
Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, aka Duc de Saint-Simon
The golden age is before us, not behind us.
Our true age can be determined by the ways in which we allow ourselves to play.
Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.
Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
Not every age finds its great man, and not every great endowment finds its time. There may not exist great men for things that do not exist. In any case, the dominating feeling of our age, the desire of the masses for a higher standard of living, cannot possibly become concentrated in one great figure. What we see before us is a general leveling down, and we might declare the rise of great individuals an impossibility if our prophetic souls did not warn us that the crisis may suddenly pass from the contemptible field of “property and gain” on to quite another and that then the “right man” may appear overnight – and all the world will follow in his train.
Age | Desire | Impossibility | Man | Men | Property | Right | Time | Will | World | Crisis |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modem and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
Age | Arrogance | Control | Man | Misfortune | Nature | Science | Misfortune |
Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller
Not every age is an age of heroes. In order for there to be such larger-than-life figures among us, there must be great social causes, such as just wars or liberation movements that call for extraordinary leadership. Otherwise there are no heroic niches to be filled, and we look elsewhere – to business, sports, entertainment – for people to admire.
Age | Business | Entertainment | Life | Life | Order | People |