This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
We ought so to behave to one another as to avoid making enemies of our friends, and at the same time to make friends of our enemies.
Count not him among your friends who will retail your privacies to the world.
Ram Dass, aka Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert
The fun is having friends who help each other get free.
Often you used the name of your home town as a metaphor for your 1992 presidential campaign, 'The man from Hope. Well, I am sure that many Katrina-displaced families now homeless, or huddling with friends or relatives or in shacks wish that you would give them some hope.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
Two friends went into an orchard. One of them possessing much worldly wisdom, immediately began to count the mango trees there and the number of mangoes each tree bore, and to estimate what might be the approximate value of the whole orchard. His companion went to the owner, made friends with him, and then, quietly going into a tree, began at his host's desire to pluck the fruits and eat them. Whom do you consider to be the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes. It will satisfy your hunger. What is the good of counting the trees and leaves and making calculations? The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the why and wherefore of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.
Desire | Good | Man | Will | Wisdom | Friends | Intellect | Value |
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the why and wherefore of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.
Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
At the top of a hill our automobile stuck in a snowdrift. Peasants ran out of a cottage nearby, shouting with laughter because machinery had made a fool of itself, and dug out the automobile with incredible rapidity. They were doubtless anxious to get back and tell a horse about it.
Laughter |
A disorderly man who is about to die, and does not know it, suddenly begins to put everything around him in order. His life changes. He files his papers. Her rises early and retires early to bed. He gives up his vices. His friends are pleased with the change that has come over him. As a result, his sudden death seems all the more unjust. He was going to have a happy life. Similarly, the regularity of my new life was merely the final preparation of a condemned man.
Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.
Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
That so much time was wasted in this pain. Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down To not return again! A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets him free. A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries. The Fool is me! And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
The intimate relation between humor and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Humor is concerned with the immediate incongruities of life and faith with ultimate ones. Both humor and faith are the expressions of the freedom of the human spirit, of its capacity to stand outside of life, and itself, and view the whole scene. But any view of the whole immediately creates the problem of how the incongruities of life are to be dealt with; for the effort to understand the life, and our place in it, confronts us with inconsistencies and incongruities which do not fit into any neat picture of the whole. Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence which threaten the very meaning of our life.
Capacity | Effort | Existence | Faith | Freedom | Humor | Laughter | Life | Life | Meaning | Understand |
Red Skelton, fully Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton
I live by this credo: Have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter had always brought me out of unhappy situations. Even in your darkest moment, you usually can find something to laugh about if you try hard enough.