This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The sentiment of the Cubists was simpler. No space. Everything ought to keep going! That’s probably the reason they went themselves. Either a man was a machine or else a sacrifice to make machines with... Personally, I do not need a movement. Of all movements, I like Cubism most. It had that wonderful unsure atmosphere of reflection – a poetic frame where something could be possible, where an artist could practice his intuition. It didn’t want to get rid of what went before. Instead it added something to it. The parts that I can appreciate in other movements came out of Cubism... It has force in it but it was no 'force-movement'.
Change | Discussion | Little |
Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine
We can applaud the state lottery as a public subsidy of intelligence, for it yields public income that is calculated to lighten the tax burden of us prudent abstainers at the expense of the benighted masses of wishful thinkers.
There is not a beast of the field but may trust his nature and follow it; certain that it will lead him to the best of which he is capable. But as for us, our only invincible enemy is our nature.
Words like feminism or democracy scare me. They are words with barnacles on them, and you can't see what's underneath.
When I think of my own native land, in a moment I seem to be there; but alas! recollection at hand soon hurries me back to despair.
I kept him for his humor's sake, for he would oft beguile my heart of thoughts that made it ache, and force me to a smile.
Burial |
Once more I would adopt the graver style -- a teacher should be sparing of his smile.
Office |
I was a poet too; but modern taste is so refined and delicate and chaste, that verse, whatever fire the fancy warms, without a creamy smoothness has no charms. Thus, all success depending on an ear, and thinking I might purchase it too dear, if sentiment were sacrific'd to sound, and truth cut short to make a period round, I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse than caper in the morris-dance of verse.
Liberty | Melancholy | Time | Witness | Understand |
'Tis revelation satisfies all doubts, explains all mysteries except her own, and so illuminates the path of life, that fools discover it, and stray no more.
Change | Providence |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.
Change |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
The true end of Man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole.
Change | Duty | Lesson | Man | Peace | Power | Will | Wisdom | World | Happiness |
Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.
Change |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible.