This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The teaching of any science, for purposes of liberal education, without linking it with social progress and teaching its social significance, is a crime against the student mind. It is like teaching a child how to pronounce words but now what they mean.
Crime | Education | Mind | Progress | Science | Wisdom | Words | Child |
It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We lie here in our nest, unfledged and weak, guessing dimly at our future, and scarce believing what even now appears. But the power is in us, and that power is finally to be revealed. And what a revelation will that be!
Future | Power | Revelation | Will | Wisdom |
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.
Agatha Christie, fully Dame Agatha Miller Christie
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin
If I had my life to live again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Character | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Poetry | Rule | Wisdom | Loss |
Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin
If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Character | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Poetry | Rule | Wisdom | Loss |
Why fear tomorrow, timid heart? Why tread the future's way? We only need to do our part Today, dear child, today. The past is written! Close the book On pages sad and gay; Within the future do not look, But live today-today. "Tis this one hour that God has given; His now we must obey; And it will make our earth his heaven To live today-today.
Earth | Fear | Future | God | Heart | Heaven | Need | Past | Will | Wisdom | God |
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.
Bad books are like intoxicating drinks; they furnish neither nourishment, nor medicine. Both improperly excite; the one the mind; the other by body. The desire for each increases by being fed. Both ruin; one the intellect; the other the health; and together, the soul. The safeguard against each is the same - total abstinence from all that intoxicates either body or mind.
Abstinence | Body | Books | Desire | Health | Mind | Soul | Wisdom |
It is arrogance to think that the earthbound have any true grasp of the complex meaning, or meanings, of life; we have not yet gathered all the data. Our own significance, our ultimate potential and our ensemble of possible destinies will be understood only by finding and studying the other intelligent creatures of space. Thus, a prime task for us is to seek these other intelligent civilizations and join them in shared knowledge. We now have the means to do so, and if we are as noble as we think, we will proceed vigorously with this enterprise.
Arrogance | Knowledge | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Space | Will | Wisdom | Think |
In the first place, the human mind, no matter how highly trained, is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many tongues. The little child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind to God. And because I believe this, I am not an atheist.
Books | God | Little | Mind | Order | Plan | Universe | Wisdom | Child | Understand |
If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time - not tomorrow, nor next year, nor in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
Better | Day | Future | Life | Life | Little | Present | Time | Tomorrow | Wisdom |