This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
Time |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness is built upon our freedom -- is moral, not material. We have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.
Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.
Time |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
There's nothing like mixing with a woman to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense.
Todd Rundgren, fully Todd Harry Rundgren
So there was a way for you to get promoted and survive as an artist without worrying about AM radio hits.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
After the monkeys came down from the trees and learned to hurl sharp objects, they had had to move into caves for protection–not only from the big predatory cats but, as they began to lose their monkey fur, from the elements. Eventually, they started transposing their hunting fantasies onto cave walls in the form of pictures, first as an attempt at practical magic and later for the strange, unexpected pleasure they discovered in artistic creation. Time passed. Art came off the walls and turned into ritual. Ritual became religion. Religion spawned science. Science led to big business. And big business, if it continues on its present mindless, voracious trajectory, could land those of us lucky enough to survive its ultimate legacy back into caves again.
A little fire is quickly trodden out; Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench. King Henry the Sixth, Part III (Clarence at IV, viii)
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, that would reduce these bloody days again and make poor England weep in streams of blood! Let them not live to taste this land's increase that would with treason wound this fair land's peace! Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again: that she may long live here, God say amen! Richard III, Act v, Scene 5
A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. Henry IV, Act i, Scene 2
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud, else would I tear the cave where Echo lies and make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine with repetition of "My Romeo!"
But man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s most assur'd; his glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep. Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, and the youth, mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!
I will now confess my own utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual advent of some sort of socialistic equilibrium. The fatalistic view of the war function is to me nonsense, for I know that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of enterprise. And when whole nations are the armies, and the science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the science of production, I see that war becomes absurd and impossible from its own monstrosity. Extravagant ambitions will have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make common cause against them.
The human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum. . . . it is only an inveterate habit -- the habit of inferiority to our full self.
History | Philosophy | Will | Think |
A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.
One was there who left all his friends behind; who going inland ever more and more, and being left quite alone, at last did find a lonely valley sheltered from the wind, wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, a long-deserted ruined castle stood.
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