This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel
At the same time, it has to recognize in the shades of difference in form the degree of blood-relationship, and make an effort to construct the ancestral tree of the animal world. In this way, comparative anatomy enters into the closest relations with comparative embryology on the one hand, and with the science of classification on the other.
Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel
Though the great differences in the mental life and the civilisation of the higher and lower races are generally known, they are, as a rule, under-valued, and so the value of life at the different levels is falsely estimated. It is civilisation, and the fuller development of the mind that makes civilisation possible, that raise mans so much above the other animals, even his nearest animal relatives, the mammals. But this is, as a rule, peculiar to the higher races, and is found only in a very imperfect form or not at all among the lower. These lower races (such as the Veddahs or Austrailan negroes) are psychologically nearer to the mammals (apes or dogs) than to civilised Europeans; we must, therefore, assign a totally different value to their lives.
Doctrine | Experiment | Ignorance |
What we have been saying in regard to imagination and memory, must be applied to contemplation, according as it is referred to either. If it be made to consist in retaining the perceptions; before the use of instituted signs it has only a habit which does not depend on us: but it has none at all, if it be made to consist in preserving the signs themselves.
Design | Fame | Knowledge | Mankind | Memory | Music | Poetry | Religion | Time | Wants |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
For myself, I want no advantage over my fellow man, and if he is weaker than I, all the more is it my duty to help him.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Howard's eyes were open and very clear. I'd forgotten what a beautiful gray they were--illness and medicine had regularly glazed them over; now they were bright and attentive, and he was watching me, consciously, through long lashes. Lungs, heart may have stopped but the optic nerves were still sending messages to a brain which, those who should know tell us, does not immediately shut down. So we stared at each other at the end... 'Can you hear me?' I asked him. 'I know you can see me.' Although there was no breath for speech, he now had a sort of wry wiseguy from the Bronx expression on his face which said clearly to me who knew all his expressions, 'So this is the big fucking deal everyone goes on about.
Statesmen and Philanthropists are busy suggesting remedies for the cure of these great evils. But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.
Change | Evolution | Human nature | Life | Life | Light | Mankind | Means | Men | Nature | Object | Perfection |
Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
There is no form of platitudes that cannot be easily converted into iambic pentameter. If a person has learned to count to ten, it is not difficult to start a new line with each syllable of the eleventh or repel every second syllable accented.
The Founding Fathers understood the principle that “righteousness exalteth a nation”, and helped to bring about one of the greatest systems ever used to govern men. But unless we continue to seek righteousness and preserve the liberties entrusted to us, we shall lose the blessings of heaven. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The price of freedom is also to live in accordance with the commandments of God. The early Founding Fathers thanked the Lord for His intervention in their behalf. They saw His hand in their victories in battle and believed strongly that He watched over them.
Blessings | Dignity | Freedom | Ideals | Individual | Mankind | Mind | Nations | People | Principles | Respect | Respect |
Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil.
Aid | Cause | Culture | Evolution | Experience | Faith | Force | Humanity | Life | Life | Mankind | Morality | Nature | Optimism | Past | Peace | Pessimism | Power | Will |
To protest and knock one's head against the wall is what everybody can do.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music... As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up - probably somebody lighting a wood-fire-and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again. He got up trembling.