This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business, which are signs of being weary of themselves.
Business | Leisure | Men | Mother | Riches | Solitude | Thought |
I see that everywhere among the race of men it is the tongue that wins and not the deed.
A child tells in the street what its father and mother say at home.
The Tongue of a Fool carves a Piece of his Heart, to all that sit near him... The Tongue of idle persons is never still.
Heart |
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it. Love's Labour 's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
Go to your bosom, knock there and ask your heart what it doth know that is like my brother's fault; if it confess a natural guiltiness, such as his is, let it not sound a thought upon your tongue against my brother. Measure for Measure, Act ii, Scene 2
Claudian, latin Claudius Claudianus NULL
Expel avarice, the mother of all wickedness, who, always thirst for more, opens wide her jaws for gold.
Avarice | Gold | Mother | Wickedness |
A guilty conscience is the mother of invention.
Conscience | Invention | Mother | Guilty |
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require.
Attention | Better | Delay | Invention | Memory | Mind | Money | Words |
Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
Conscience | Culture | Doubt | Ideas | Literature | Men | Nothing |