This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
Circumstances | Progress | War | Wisdom |
William Osler, fully Sir William Osler
The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
Much of the wisdom of one age is the folly of the next.
Happiness is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.
Circumstances | Wisdom | Happiness |
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 |
Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
When we desire or solicit any thing, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
Circumstances | Desire | Good | Wisdom |
Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, aka Duc de Saint-Simon
The golden age is before us, not behind us.