This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"We cling in our public life to a brutal hypocrisy. In our century of almost universal violence of humans against fellow humans, and against our natural and cultural commonwealth, hypocrisy has been inescapable because our opposition to violence has been selective or merely fashionable. Some of us who approve of our monstrous military budget and our peacekeeping wars nonetheless deplore “domestic violence” and think that our society can be pacified by “gun control.” Some of us are against capital punishment but for abortion. Some of us are against abortion but for capital punishment." - Wendell Berry
"Earth, receive an honored guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie emptied of its poetry." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one" - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"The aim of education is to induce the largest amount of neurosis that the individual can bear without cracking." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"Seeking world peace is not about peace, it is power and control all under the guise of service to humanity." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"But we do not merely protest; we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell: the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears; the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
"John, she said, does it make every one unhappy when they study and learn lots of things. He paused and smiled. I am afraid it does, he said. And, John, are you glad you studied? Yes, came the answer, slowly but positively. She watched the flickering lights upon the sea, and said thoughtfully, I wish I was unhappy,—and—and, putting both arms about his neck, I think I am, a little, John." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
"I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist—a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself." - W. Eugene Smith, fully William Eugene Smith
"I've never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil." - W. Eugene Smith, fully William Eugene Smith
"It is widely recognized that the weakest students can be very unhappy if their special needs are not met. It is often not recognized that the ablest too can suffer acutely, if they are captive in a lockstep class and have to work, at what seems to them a snail's pace, through material they could have disposed of quickly when they were several years younger. The root of the trouble lies in the concept that education is something done to a pupil by a teacher. This is entirely untrue, at any rate for mathematics. Young mathematicians are hungry for knowledge and nothing delights them more than to be given the opportunity to read ahead on their own. The strongest students will then reach topics far beyond anything that a school curriculum could possibly contain or a school teacher be expected to expound. Even those, who are slightly above the level the curriculum envisages, will benefit from the relief of boredom and the extra knowledge acquired." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer
"Most teachers who are honest with themselves are forced to admit that, in the main, the class would make the same progress if the teacher were not there at all, the clever remaining clever and the dull remaining dull." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer
"To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair." - Walker Percy
"What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the angels, that it took nothing less than touching the thread off the misty interstates and eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning." - Walker Percy
"As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible." - Wallace Stevens
"Lacustrine man had never been assailed by such long-rolling opulent cataracts, unless Racine or Bossuet held the like." - Wallace Stevens
"Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential." - Wallace Stevens
"I must say that the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organizations in particular, might be summed up in a single word: learn." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
"I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder - I believe she stole it from her mother’s Spanish maid - a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush prevented them from overflowing - and as we drew away from each other, and with aching veins attended to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the house her mother’s voice calling her, with a rising frantic note - and Dr. Cooper ponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove - the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since - until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Prejudice, friend, govern the vulgar crowd." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"What can we say if once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been roused in us?" - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"Let your mind alone, and see what happens." - Virgil Thomson
"Reviewing music or reviewing anything is a writing job. It's nice if you are experienced in the field you are writing about, but writing is what you are doing." - Virgil Thomson
"The description and explanation is the best part of music reviewing. There is such a thing, and you know it too, as a gift for judgment. If you have it, you can say anything you like. If you haven't got it, you don't know you haven't got it. And everything you say will be held against you." - Virgil Thomson
"The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish." - Virgil Thomson
"They look better than we do; they can wear all colors on stage. We're sort of oyster-colored." - Virgil Thomson
"I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Do you know what friendship is... it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand." - Victor Hugo
"The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved. Few people daresay nowadays that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet that is the way love begins, and only that way." - Victor Hugo
"The Name of the Creator is your beloved friend and child; it alone shall go along with you, O my mind." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"We should abstain from miserliness, cruelty, gambling and misconduct while doing business." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"There’s no excuse for poverty in a state as rich as California. We can produce so much food that we have to dump it into our bay." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
"It is a terrible thing, this kindess that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"The philosophy is the art of life difficult by trying to convince himself of its simplicity." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
"Sorrow is to the soul what the worm is to wood" - Turkish Proverbs
"A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii, Scene 3" - William Shakespeare
"And for I know she taketh most delight In music, instruments, and poetry, Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio, Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such, Prefer them hither, for to cunning men I will be very kind, and liberal To mine own children in good bringing-up." - William Shakespeare
"And if he dies, take him and cut him into little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that everyone will fall in love with night." - William Shakespeare
"And will 'a not come again? And will 'a not come again? No, no, he is dead, go to thy death bed: he will never come again. Hamlet, Act iv, Scene 5" - William Shakespeare
"Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat." - William Shakespeare
"But neither bended knees, pure hands held up, sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears, could penetrate her uncompassionate sire. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Proteus at III, i)" - William Shakespeare
"Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe, A tale of folly and of wasted life, Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife, Ending, where all things end, in death at last." - William Morris
"Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it." - Duke Ellington, fully Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
"There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2 - Never forget rule number 1." - Duke Ellington, fully Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington