This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. " - Madame de Staël, Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, born Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Madame Necker
"The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy." - Malcolm S. Forbes, fully Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Sr.
"Hard people are weak people whom nobody wants, and the strong, caring little whether they are wanted or not, have alone that meekness which the common herd mistake for weakness." - Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust
"Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has." - Marguerite Yourcenar, pseudonym for Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour
"Technology as the knack of eliminating the world as resistance,... the technologist's worldlessness.... My mistake lay in the fact that we technologists try to live without death. " - Max Frisch
"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone. " - Milan Kundera
"In love, no certainty is ultimate... That elementary thing - the feeling that you are loved - must be certified again and again, because one doubt,one mistake razes everything to madness and ecstasy." - Mircea Eliade
"It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL
"If a rich man steals it is a mistake; if a poor man makes a mistake he has stolen." - Moroccan Proverbs
"A known mistake is better than an unknown truth." - Moroccan Proverbs
"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
"The future disappeared, and my selfish motives went with it. I existed only in the present. The one thing keeping me going was being part of a group, knowing each mistake made my comrades a little weaker. Group punishment, shunned in most of American society, was a staple at OCS. Platoons fight as groups. They live or die as groups. So we were disciplined as a group." - Nathaniel Fick
"No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique. " - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
"Lives are snowflakes - unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection.)" - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
"Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact." - Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
"From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole." - Nikola Tesla
"The battle is long and arduous. Let there be no mistake as to that. Go not forth to this battle without counting the cost. Ages have gone to the strengthening of the foe. Ages of conflict must be spent, ere the foe, wholly conquered, becomes the servant, the Soul’s minister to mankind." - Patañjali NULL
"Consider every mistake you do make as an asset." - Paul J. Meyer
"A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is." - Pauline Kael
"Everything said to myself that I was about to have a wrong decision, but to suffer from mistakes is just part of life. The world wants something from you? Do not want to risk it again and returned to where they have gone by I do not have the courage to say yes to it? I made a mistake when his first eleven years old, when her son I can ask to see him not borrow a pencil, from then on, I realized that sometimes you do not have a second chance and it is better to accept the gift that this world gift . Of course it's risky, but risk is greater risk that their bus was sitting on the forty-eight hours to get here might have an accident? If I must be honest with someone or something, you have to do, and first, to be honest with yourself already. If you are looking for a true love, then you must first remove the trivial love from people you have. What little experience I have taught her is that no one owns anything at all, that everything is an illusion-and illusion that the physical affects as well as the soul of all things so. Anyone who has lost something that they think it is theirs forever (as it has frequently happened to me last time), finally realizes that nothing really belongs to them all. And if nothing belongs to me at all, then it is useless to waste time to take care of things is not his; best to live as if today is the first (or also may be the last day) of life. " - Paulo Coelho
"No mistake is more to be deplored than the conception that a system of morals and religion should derive any portion of its authority either from the circumstance of its novelty or its antiquity, that it should be judged excellent, not because it is reasonable or true, but because no person has ever thought of it before, or because it has been thought of from the beginning of time." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be." - Pete Seeger, born Peter Seeger
"Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations. " - Peter Senge, fully Peter Michael Senge
"Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious." - Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
"A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once." - Phyllis Diller, born Phyllis Ada Driver
"According to our laws, it is a great mistake to believe that one is practicing non-figurative art by merely achieving neutral forms or free lines and determinate relations. For in composing these forms one runs the risk of a figurative creation, that is to say one or more particular forms. Non-figurative art is created by establishing a dynamic rhythm of determinate mutual relations which excludes the formation of any particular form. We note thus, that to destroy particular form is only to do more consistently what all art has done." - Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
"It is therefore a mistake to suppose that a non-figurative work comes out of the unconscious, which is a collection of individual and pre-natal memories. We repeat that it comes from pure intuition, which is at the basis of the subjective-objective dualism. It is, however, wrong to think that the non-figurative artist finds impressions and emotions received from the outside useless, and regards it even as necessary to fight against them. On the contrary, all that the non-figurative artist receives from the outside is not only useful but indispensable, because it arouses in him the desire to creative that which he only vaguely feels and which he could never represent in a true manner without the contact with visible reality and with the life which surrounds him." - Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
"That which distinguishes him from the figurative artist is the fact that in his creations he frees himself from individual sentiments and from particular impressions which he receives from outside, and that he breaks loose from the domination of the individual inclination within him. It is therefore equally wrong to think that the non-figurative artist creates through ‘the pure intention of his mechanical process,’ that he makes ‘calculated abstractions,’ and that he wishes to ’suppress sentiment not only in himself but also in the spectator.’ It is a mistake to think that he retires completely into his system. That which is regarded as a system is nothing but constant obedience to the laws of pure plastics, to necessity, which art demands from him. It is thus clear that he has not become a mechanic, but that the progress of science, of technique, of machinery, of life as a whole, has only made him into a living machine, capable of realizing in a pure manner the essence of art. In this way, he is in his creation sufficiently neutral, that nothing of himself or outside of him can prevent him from establishing that which is universal. Certainly his art is art for art’s sake … for the sake of the art which is form and content at one and the same time." - Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
"The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind; yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately!" - Plato NULL
"It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"But a truth always goes straight ahead despite mistake and blunder, and proves itself at last." - Prentice Mulford
"Soon other questions and demands are to be answered, questions ever going out in silence from multitudes; and, in answering them, in at first attempting to carry out and prove the answers and the means shown to accomplish or realize many things deemed impossible or visionary, there will be mistake and stupidity, and blunder and silliness, and breakdowns and failures, and consequent ridicule; just as there were ten smashes on railways, and ten bursted boilers in the earlier era of the use of steam, to one of today. " - Prentice Mulford
"The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship." - Deborah Tannen, fully Deborah Frances Tannen
"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime. " - Albert Einstein
"Human beings were given a left foot and a right foot to make a mistake first to the left, then to the right, left again and repeat." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry. " - Albert Einstein
"Someone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. " - Albert Einstein
"It is of fundamental importance not to make the positivist mistake of assuming that because a group" - R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing
"Many people make the mistake of turning the means through which something comes about into an intermediary between themselves and God. They do believe in God, but they also believe in the intermediary, saying that we have no option but to depend upon a particular means in order to bring about a certain result. For example, they put their faith in their business activities as the cause of their livelihood, placing all the emphasis on their own endeavors as if God would somehow not be able to provide their livelihood without them. Likewise people put all the emphasis on the means through which a cure comes about - the medicine - as if without medicine God does not have the power to heal. That is not so. The Holy One, blessed be He, is the Cause of all causes, and there is absolutely no need for any one particular means. Even while resorting to a given means to try to bring something about, we must believe only in God, and not put our faith in the means." - Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
"Common sense always speaks too late. Common sense is the guy who tells you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front end this week. Common sense is the Monday morning quarterback who could have won the ball game if he had been on the team. But he never is. He's high up in the stands with a flask on his hip. Common sense is the little man in a gray suit who never makes a mistake in addition. But it's always somebody else's money he's adding up." - Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
"You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing." - René Descartes
"A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor." - Ring Lardner, fully Ringgold "Ring" Wilmer Lardner
"And what corresponds to inching up the kindly, grassy slopes on the other side of the mountain? It is the slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants that Darwin called natural selection. The metaphor of Mount Improbable dramatizes the mistake of the sceptics quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Where they went wrong was to keep their eyes fixed on the vertical precipice and its dramatic height. They assumed that the sheer cliff was the only way up to the summit on which they are perched eyes and protein molecules and other supremely improbable arrangements of parts. It was Darwin's great achievement to discover the gentle gradients winding up the other side of the mountain." - Richard Dawkins
"I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth. Blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says to a this year's bud. Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice. Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless. And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy, as set out in this statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy by telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a God, or a Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed. " - Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
"22 Investment Maxims [paraphrased] - 1. For all long-term investors, theres is only one objective— “maximum total return after taxes.” 2. Achieving a good record takes much study and work, and is a lot harder than most people think. Many people doubt that this is even possible on a consistent basis. I’m on the fence on this one. I see proof that it can be done but realize that most people won’t be able to do it. 3. It is impossible to produce a superior performance unless you do something different from the majority. 4. The time of maximum pessimism is th ebest time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell. Sounds like something Warren Buffett would say. 5. To put “Maxim 4″ in somewhat different terms, in the stock market the only way to get a bargain is to buy what most investors are selling. 6. To buy when others are despondently selling and to sell wehn others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude, even while offering the greatest reward. This is so true. 7. Bear markets have always been temporary. Share prices turn upward from one to twelve months before the bottom of the business cycle. Bull markets are temporary too. 8. If a particular industry or type of security becomes popular with investors, that popularity will always prove temporary and, when lost, won’t return for many years. Interesting. The NASDAQ Composite Index comes to mind. 9. In the long run, the stock market indexes fluctuate around the long-term upward trend of earnings per share. 10. In free-enterprise nations, the earnings on stock market indexes fluctuate around the replacement book value of the share of the index. 11. If you buy the same securities as other people, you will have the same results as other people. 12. The time to buy a stock is when the short-term owners have finished their selling, and the time to sell a stock is often when short-term owners have finished their buying. Not quite sure how you’re supposed to know when this is. 13. Share prices fluctuate much more widely than values. Therefore, index funds will never produce the best total return performance. I always thought that this was true because the goal of the index is to capture the market’s return, minus fees. 14. Too many investors focus on “outlook” and “trends.” Therefore, more profit is made by focusing on value. 15. If you search worldwide, you will find more bargains and better bargains than by studying only one nation. Also, you gain the safety of diversification. Unless of course the nation you are studying is heavily dependent on exports to another country that is in trouble. 16. The fluctuation of share prices is roughly proportional to the square-root of the price. 17. The time to sell an asset is when you have found a much better bargain to replace it. 18. When any method for selecting stocks becomes popular, then switch to unpopular methods. As has been suggested in “Maxim 3,” too many investors can spoil any share-selection method or any market-timing formula. 19. Never adopt permanently any type of asset or any selection method. Try to stay flexible, open-minded and sekptical. Long-term top results are achieved only by changing from popular to unpopular the types of securities you favor and your methods of selection. 20. The skill factor in slection is largest for the common-stock part of your investments. 21. The best performance is produced by a person, not a committee. Interesting that he would say this. 22. If you begin with prayer, you can think more clearly and make fewer stupid mistakes." - John Templeton, fully Sir John Marks Templeton
"A child does not notice the greatness and the beauty of nature and the splendor of God in his works." - Rudolf Otto
"I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them." - Rudyard Kipling