This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Th' past always looks betther thin it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.
Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myriads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches in the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, however skillfully constructed, could do; nay, which brings to view even the throne of God, and pierces that nebulous distance where are those eternal verities in which true life consists.
Religion is life, philosophy is thought; religion looks up, friendship looks in. We need both thought and life, and we need that the two shall be in harmony.
Harmony | Life | Life | Looks | Need | Philosophy | Religion | Thought | Friendship | Thought |
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift.
There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
Discretion | Impertinence | Learning | Life | Life | Looks | Man | Mind | Pedantry | Perfection | Prejudice | Qualities | Rest | Virtue | Virtue | Wants | Weakness | Will | Wit | Work | World | Talent | Value |
Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
The Masters say that the soul has two faces. The higher one always sees God, the lower one looks downward and informs the senses. The higher one is the summit of the soul, it gazes into eternity. It knows nothing about time and body.
Religion is a candle inside a multi-colored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there.
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
Things are in their essence what we choose to make them. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it.
Looks |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The metaphysician looks at truth from within to without. That is why they clash. But realized souls who understand science as well as metaphysics find no difference at all. They see the parallelism between science and truth because they see the whole picture.
Looks | Metaphysics | Science | Truth | Understand |
Success at anything requires two vital ingredients: enthusiasm and perseverance. Both can be helped by the broad view that looks beyond temporary difficulties and disappointments to a great goal... Enthusiasm is the priceless quality that makes everything different.
Enthusiasm | Looks | Perseverance | Success |
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.
Better | Humanity | Looks | Progress | Utopia | World | Worth |
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has earned anything rightly until he knows that every day is doomsday. Today is a king in disguise. Today always looks mean to the thoughtless, in the face of a uniform experience that all good and great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank todays. Let us not be deceived, let us unmask the king as he passes.
Day | Disguise | Experience | Good | Happy | Heart | Looks | Man |