This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged." - Erving Goffman
"By setting the anguish out into the open and voicing it as a prayer, the psalm gives dignity to our suffering. It does not look on suffering as something slightly embarrassing that must be hushed up and locked in a closet (where it finally becomes a skeleton) because this sort of thing shouldnÂ’t happen to a real person of faith. And it doesnÂ’t treat it as a puzzle that must be explained, and therefore turn it over to theologians or philosophers to work out an answer. Suffering is set squarely, openly, passionately before God. It is acknowledged and expressed. It is described and lived." - Eugene Peterson
"American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"Child labor must be abolished by the working class." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"Back to event the sun and the widespread voices, not the usual noises door." - Eugenio Montale
"In spite of the polls, the fact is that American Muslims are very happy and they thrive in this country." - Feisal Abdul Rauf
"Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil." - Felix Adler
"The comforter's head never aches." - Italian Proverbs
"The devil is bad because he is old." - Italian Proverbs
"The father a saint the son a devil." - Italian Proverbs
"The friendship of the great is fraternity with lions." - Italian Proverbs
"Aragorn looked at the pale stars, and at the moon, now sloping behind the western hills that enclosed the valley. 'This is a night as long as years', he said. 'How long will the day tarry?' 'Dawn is not far off', said Gamling, who had now climbed up beside him. 'But dawn will not help us, I fear' 'Yet dawn is ever the hope of men', said Aragorn." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
"FRODO: If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien