This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Two weeks before his death, a friend asked him half-jokingly if he had discovered any meaning in life. 'Yes,' he replied, ' there is a meaning, at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.'
Death | Friend | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Wisdom | Words |
It is the little things in life that are the sublime things. It is the minor parts of the great drama which make up the whole. The handclasp, the smile, the words of confidence or encouragement; these are the strength and bulwark of society, business, religion - and home life. Without them, there would be no trust; without trust, our world would collapse.
Business | Confidence | Life | Life | Little | Religion | Smile | Society | Strength | Trust | Wisdom | Words | World |
George Steiner, fully Francis George Steiner
Music has always had its own syntax, its own vocabulary and symbolic means. Indeed, it is with mathematics the principal language of the mind when the mind is in a condition of non-verbal feeling.
There are around half a million words in the English language, but a recent statistical study of telephone speech discovered that 96 percent of all conversation over the wires consists of just 737 words.
Please stop using the word “Negro”... We are the only human beings in the world with fifty-seven varieties of complexions who are classed together as a single racial unit. Therefore, we are really colored people, and that is the only name in the English language which accurately describes us.
All societies create their own worlds, using language and folklore to impose an arbitrary order on the complexity of the cosmos. This ordering of reality helps make sense of things by interpreting information in ways which are compatible with what is already known.
It is quite possible, and not uncommon, to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all - that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject.
Be what you wish others to become. Let yourself and not your words preach for you.
Words |
Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, known also as Fares Chidiac, Faris Al Chidiac
Every language in the world has something beautiful and something ugly about it, for language is nothing more than the expression of the activities, thoughts, and actions of human beings. There is naturally always something to blame and something to praise.
Every author, indeed, who really influences the mind, who plants in it thoughts an sentiments which take root and grow, communicates his character. Error and immorality - two words for one thing, for error is the immorality of the intellect, and immorality the error of the heart - these escape from him if they are in him, and pass into the recipient mind through subtle avenues invisible to consciousness.
Character | Consciousness | Error | Heart | Mind | Wisdom | Words |
I hold it to be of the highest importance for our interests that we should think rather of what we shall do than what we shall say. When we have decided upon that, it will be easy to accommodate our words to our acts.
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
One should not (seek to) please others in an improper way, not be lavish of his words... To cultivate one’s person and fulfill one’s word is called good conduct. When the conduct is (thus) ordered, and the words are accordant with the (right) course, we have the substance of the rules of propriety... The course (of duty), virtue, benevolence, and righteousness cannot be fully carried out without the rules of propriety... nor can the clearing up of quarrels and discriminating in disputes be accomplished.
Benevolence | Conduct | Duty | Good | Right | Righteousness | Virtue | Virtue | Words |
Lives can be changed if you say the right thing at the right time at the right place with the right spirit… Words of encouragement, spoken or written, have a dramatic effect on a person…Well-intended words, even though they are correct, can damage relationships if they are not perceived as being offered with good will.