This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The mighty angel broke the seal, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it as to say, Now look who’s in charge around here." - Vance Havner
"The Encyclopoedia Britannica could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk. If the human race has produced since the invention of movable type a total record, in the form of magazines, newspapers, books, tracts, advertising blurbs, correspondence, having a volume corresponding to a billion books, the whole affair, assembled and compressed, could be lugged off in a moving van. Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also to be able to consult it, and this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled by a few." - Vannevar Bush
"The word courage is fearlessness in jeopardy." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
"Wickedness supposed to taste the evil hidden malignancy wickedness." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
"Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops." - Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.
"Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops." - Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
"But if NATO’s only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let’s at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are ”cleansing” Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted. Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
"The next six months in Iraq — which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there — are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
"The simple definition of globalization is the interweaving of markets, technology, information systems, and telecommunications networks in a way that is shrinking the world from a size medium to a size small. It began decades ago, but accelerated dramatically over the past 10 years, as the price of computing power fell and the world became an ever-more densely interconnected place. People resist this shift — see, for example, the G8 protests of 2001 (one of the bloodiest uprisings in recent European history) or the recent rioting in Pittsburgh at this year’s G20 conference—because they think it primarily benefits big business elites to the detriment of everyone else. But globalization didn’t ruin the world—it just flattened it. And on balance that can benefit everyone, especially the poor. Globalization has pulled millions of people out of poverty in India and China, and multiplied the size of the global middle class. It has raised the global standard of living faster than that at any other time in the history of the world, and it is supporting astounding growth. All world economic activity was valued at $7 trillion in 1950. That’s equal to how much growth took place over just the past decade, even including the recent downturn. Whatever people’s fears of change, globalization is here to stay—and, if properly managed, it will be a good thing." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
"Keeping another person waiting is a basic tactic for defining him as inferior and oneself as superior." - Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz
"I think that it can be assumed that no adults are ever really 'shocked' - that being shocked is always a pose." - Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
"I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire." - Thucydides NULL
"In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school." - Thucydides NULL
"You are convinced by experience that very few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought." - Thucydides NULL
"The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down." - Thurgood Marshall
"The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments... I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively." - William James
"It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it; nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"We have more indolence in the mind than in the body." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"How old were you when you first realized that your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent, that what they said did not, in fact, go, they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet? Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?" - Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown
"As soon as the words were out, sorry. Was preferable to the man considered extremely being a woman, as no other. It should not have to show any of it or another, it is imperfect, vulnerable person like everyone else. If you know that wearing a heart of glass, it will break." - Elif Safak
"I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Those who are beloved cannot die, because love means immortality." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
"Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make." - Emmet Fox
"The first thing that we have to realize is a fact of fundamental importance, because it means breaking away from all the ordinary prepossessions of orthodoxy. The plain fact is that Jesus taught no theology whatever. His teaching is entirely spiritual or metaphysical. Historical Christianity, unfortunately, has largely concerned itself with theological and doctrinal questions which, strange to say, have no part whatever in the Gospel teaching. It will startle many good people to learn that all the doctrines and theologies of the churches are human inventions built up by their authors out of their own mentalities… There is absolutely no system of theology of doctrine to be found in the Bible; it simply is not there." - Emmet Fox
"Maleness is a biological risk factor." - Estelle R. Ramey, born Stella Rosemary Rubin
"Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice." - Evgeny Morozov
"Voluntary cultures that work this way are not actually uncommon; one other in which I have long participated is science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom explicitly recognizes egoboo (the enhancement of one's reputation among other fans) as the basic drive behind volunteer activity." - Eric S. Raymond
"Please, if one of us cries, let both of us cry. But preferably neither of us." - Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
"In other words, it is not so much a question as to whether we are able to cure a patient, whether we can or not, but whether we should or not." - Ernest Becker
"The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count." - Ernest Becker
"Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be" - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"It was strange how easy being tired enough made it." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"This was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"When you have a child, the world has a hostage." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
"Socialists should insist on using the nationalized industries not simply to out-capitalize the capitalists—an attempt in which they may or may not succeed—but to evolve a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilization of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
"We are, I believe, at the moment in grave danger of missing the 'path to perfection'." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
"By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly, said Mr Levy, School is pretty bad... (Part One, Chapter One)" - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
"Never let the bottom of your purse or of your mind be seen." - Italian Proverbs
"No good lawyer ever goes to court himself." - Italian Proverbs
"On every small pretext the wolf seizes the sheep." - Italian Proverbs
"Substance is not enough, accident is also required." - Italian Proverbs
"The devil is bad because he is old." - Italian Proverbs