This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."
The tongue of a man is the rudder of a ship, but the Universal Lord is its pilot.
Anahareo, given name Gertrude Moltke Bernard NULL
The tongue is, at the same, the best part of a man, and his worst; with good government, none is more useful; without it, none is more mischievous.
Good | Government | Man | Wisdom |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Wine-drinking is the mother of all mischief, the root of crimes, the spring of vices, the whirlwind of the brain, the overthrow of the sense, the tempest of the tongue, the ruin of the body, the shame of life, the stain of honesty, and the plague and corruption of the soul.
Body | Corruption | Honesty | Life | Life | Mother | Sense | Shame | Soul | Wisdom |
Slander is called the third tongue because it slays three persons, the speaker, the spoken to, and the spoken of.
Eugene P. Bertin, fully Eugene Peter Bertin
Honest work bears a lovely face for it is the father of pleasure and the mother of good fortune. It is the keystone of prosperity and the sire of fame. And best of all, work is relief from sorrow and the handmaiden of happiness.
Fame | Father | Fortune | Good | Mother | Pleasure | Prosperity | Sorrow | Wisdom | Work |
Clive Barnes, fully Clive Alexander Barnes
Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everyone and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
Culture | People | Television | Wisdom |
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Age | Enough | Family | Father | Isolation | Mother | Nature | People | Security | Wisdom | World |
Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.
Culture | Extreme | Simplicity | Wisdom |
Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England
As thou desirest the love of God and man, beware of pride. It is a tumor in the mind, that breaks and ruins all thine actions; a worm in thy treasury, that eats and ruins thine estate. It loves no man, and is beloved of none; it disparages another's virtues by detraction, and thine own vainglory. It is the friend of the flatterer, the mother of envy, the nurse of fury, the sin of devils, and devil of mankind. It hates superiors, scorns inferiors, and owns no equal. In short, till thou hate it, God hate thee.
Devil | Envy | Friend | Fury | God | Hate | Love | Man | Mankind | Mind | Mother | Pride | Sin | Wisdom | God |
There are five tests of the evidence of education - correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue; refined and gentle manners, the result of fixed habits of thought and action; sound standards of appreciation of beauty and of worth, and a character based on those standards; power and habit of reflection, efficiency or the power to do.
Action | Appreciation | Beauty | Character | Correctness | Education | Efficiency | Evidence | Habit | Manners | Mother | Power | Precision | Reflection | Sound | Thought | Wisdom | Worth | Precision | Appreciation | Beauty | Thought |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
Wisdom |