This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"“Desiderata" Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." - Max Ehrmann
"The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them." - Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón
"Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness." - Alphonse Karr, fully Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
"A land ethic for tomorrow should be as honest as Thoreau's Walden, and as comprehensive as the sensitive science of ecology. It should stress the oneness of our resources and the live-and-help-live logic of the great chain of life. If, in our haste to "progress," the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and policy makers alike, the result will be an ugly America." - Stewart Udall, Fully Stewart Lee Udall
"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." - Benjamin Franklin
"Riches amassed in haste will diminish, but those collected by little and little will multiply." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are come. The purest part of our life runs first, and leaves only the dregs at the bottom; and that time which is good for nothing else we dedicate to virtue, and only propose to begin to live at an age that very few people arrive at." -
"Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!" - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"Haste is of the devil, slowness is of God." - Islamic Proverbs
"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. You are a child of the universe with no less than the trees and the stars." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak - above all, any little child - to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste - never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer - crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature." -
"Truth is strengthened by observation and time, pretenses by haste and uncertainty." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
"God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals he is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation, is sort of ingratitude." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Whey should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"How hard it is to confess that we have spoken without thinking, that we have talked nonsense. How many a man says a thing in haste and heat, without fully understanding or half meaning it, and then, because he has said it, holds fast to it, and tries to defend it as if it were true! But how much wiser, how much more admirable and attractive it is when a man has the grace to perceive and acknowledge his mistakes! It gives us assurance that he is capable of learning, of growing, of improving, so that his future will be better than his past." - Henry Van Dyke
"Not what men do worthily, but what they do successfully, is what is history makes haste to record." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Make haste slowly, and do not be slothful when opportunity beckons." - Kahlil Gibran
"Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Patience gives peace, haste regret." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"That which any one has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportionate eagerness and haste." - William Hazlitt
"I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven — the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. " - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. " - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"The Dharma wheel, as it turns now, also tells us this: that we don’t have to invent or construct our connections. They already exist. We already and indissolubly belong to each other, for this is the nature of life. So, even in our haste and hurry and occasional discouragement, we belong to each other. We can rest in that knowing, and stop and breathe, and let that breath connect us with the still center of the turning wheel." - Joanna Macy, fully Joanna Rogers Macy
"Six Declines of Modern Youth: Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion [moving about];Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life; Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquilizers; And worst of all: Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or as William Temple called "spiritual death"." - Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
"What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation." - Malcolm Gladwell
"We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it...We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible an depending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately." - Malcolm Gladwell
"Words in haste do friendships waste." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
"The inquiry method is motivated by Postman and Weingartner's recognition that good learners and sound reasoners center their attention and activity on the dynamic process of inquiry itself, not merely on the end product of static knowledge. They write that certain characteristics are common to all good learners saying that all good learners have: Self-confidence in their learning ability - Pleasure in problem solving - A keen sense of relevance - Reliance on their own judgment over other people's or society's - No fear of being wrong - No haste in answering - Flexibility in point of view - Respect for facts, and the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion - No need for final answers to all questions, and comfort in not knowing an answer to difficult questions rather than settling for a simplistic answer." - Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
"An old warrior is never in haste to strike the blow." - Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi
"All else is illusory. This moment the body is and the next moment it is not. One must make haste to worship God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"One should learn the essence of the scriptures from the guru and then spiritual practice. If one rightly follows spiritual discipline, then one directly sees God. The discipline is said to be rightly followed only when one plunges in. What will a man gain by merely reasoning about the words of the scriptures? Ah, the fools! They reason themselves to death over information about the path. They never take the plunge. What a pity! All else is illusory. This moment the body is and the next moment it is not. One must make haste to worship God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon: As yet the early-rising Sun Has not attain'd his noon. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a Spring; As quick a growth to meet decay As you, or any thing. " - Robert Herrick
"Lo, I return with my spirit in torment May God have mercy upon you, my brother! A day ago I buried you But even now my complaint is bitter. Greetings I bring you! Do you not hear When I call to you with all my might? Answer me: Do you not recognize The response of my crying lament? Are your bones starting to wither And your teeth loosening in the jaw? Has your moistness fled in the night Even as mine is running in my tears? O first born of my father, I have left you As security in the hand of my Creator Whose assurance I trust That you will go in peace." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
"When the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; and when it is full, the spirit becomes body." - Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL
"The measure of love is to love without measure." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL