This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts – between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.
Blame | Enough | Existence | Heaven | Hell | Light | Little | Man | Play | Providence | Sense | Will | World |
Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
A man is not primarily a witness against something. That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something. A witness, in the sense that I am using the word, is a man whose life and faith are so completely one that when the challenge comes to step out and testify for his faith, he does so, disregarding all risks, accepting all consequences.
Devil | Hell | Opposition | Rest |
Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
[The Devil said:] It seems but yesterday that I launched Hell’s Five Hundred Year Plan.… I saw that Hell had to move with the tide and leave the rest to rationalism, liberalism and universal compulsory education… At first there was some opposition in Hell. Baal, Beelzebub and a handful of almost aboriginal demons who are still living in the 10th Century B.C. and have not had an idea since the Fall, naturally opposed the New Deal.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again / I am to see to it that I do not lose you
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
O You whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you; as I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done right.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
I have just this moment heard from the front — there is nothing yet of a movement, but each side is continually on the alert, expecting something to happen.
Age | Beginning | Heaven | Hell | Perfection | Will | Youth | Youth |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
There's a man in the world who is never turned down, wherever he chances to stray; he gets the glad hand in the populous town, or out where the farmers make hay; he's greeted with pleasure on deserts of sand, and deep in the aisles of the woods; wherever he goes there's a welcoming hand-he's the man who delivers the goods.
The art of practical decision, the art of determining which of several ends to pursue, which of many means to employ, when to strike and when to recoil, comes from intuitions that are more unconscious than the analytical judgment. In great emergencies the man of affairs feels his conclusions first, and understands them later.
To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
Convictions | Hell | Man |
I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever. Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.
Forgiveness | Hell | Justice | Light | Suffering | Forgiveness |
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
The essence of that spirit [the rationalistic spirit applied to religion] is to interpret the articles of special creeds by the principles of universal religion -- by the wants, the aspirations, and the moral sentiments which seem inherent in human nature. It leads men, in other words, to judge what is true and what is good, not by the teachings of tradition, but by the light of reason and of conscience; and where it has not produced an avowed change of creed. It has at least produced a change of realisations. Doctrines which shock our sense of right have been allowed gradually to become obsolete, or if they are brought forward they are stated in language which is so colourless and ambiguous, and with so many qualifications and exceptions, that their original force is almost lost.... Men have come instinctively and almost unconsciously to judge all doctrines by their intuitive sense of right, and to reject or explain away or throw into the background those that will not bear the test, no matter how imposing may be the authority that authenticates them. This method of judgment, which was once very rare, has now become very general.... When the peace of the Church has long been undisturbed, and when the minds of men are not directed with very strong interest to dogmatic questions, conscience will act insensibly upon the belief, obscuring or effacing its true character. Men will instinctively endeavour to explain it away, or to dilute its force, or to diminish its prominence. But when the agitation of controversy has brought the doctrine vividly before the mind, and when the enthusiasm of the contest has silenced the revolt of conscience, theology will be developed more and more in the same direction, till the very outlines of natural religion are obliterated.
The great ship, Balayne, lay frozen in the sea. The one-foot stars were couriers of its death to the wild limits of its habitation. These were not tepid stars of torpid places but bravest at midnight and in lonely spaces, they looked back at Hans' look with savage faces.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I know of nothing better than the Appassionata and could listen to it every day. What astonishing, superhuman music! It always makes me proud, perhaps with a childish naiveté, to think that people can work such miracles! ... But I can’t listen to music very often, it affects my nerves. I want to say sweet, silly things, and pat the little heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. These days, one can’t pat anyone on the head nowadays, they might bite your hand off. Hence, you have to beat people's little heads, beat mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people. Hmm — what a devilishly difficult job!
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
The kind of poem I produced in those days was hardly anything more than a sign I made of being alive, of passing or having passed, or hoping to pass, through certain intense human emotions. It was a phenomenon of orientation rather than of art, thus comparable to stripes of paint on a roadside rock or to a pillared heap of stones marking a mountain trail. But then, in a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one's position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members. Vivian Bloodmark, a philosophical friend of mine, in later years, used to say that while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.
Death | Eternal | Fame | Growth | Hell | Nothing | Power | Public | Punishment |