This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"We do not know the purpose of one moment of life." - Ezriel Tauber
"He had spent most of his lifetime studying the art of medicine and realized now that he would never really understand its mysteries. For medicine is an eternal quest for reasons - causes that explain effects. Science cannot comprehend a miracle." - Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
"Of the little less than a million eligibles roaming around, 5 percent don't know their sign and don't even care. Another 5 percent are tied to their mothers by a food fixation. That leaves only 20 percent who are searching for a girl who will pick up their clothes, run their baths, burn her fingers shelling their three-minute eggs, run their errands, bear them a child every year, look like a fashion model, tend their needs when they are sick, and hold down a full-time job outside the home to make payments on their boat." - Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
"I have reached far beyond my competence and have probably secured for good a reputation for flamboyant gestures. But the times still crowd me and give me no rest, and I see no way to avoid ambitious synthetic attempts; either we get some kind of grip on the accumulation of thought or we continue to wallow helplessly, to starve amidst plenty. So I gamble with science and write." - Ernest Becker
"We have become victims of our own art. We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get to their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority-it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are-only to fall strangely and miserably flat. Once in a great while we succeed, sometimes more with one person, less or never with others. But the occasional break-through only proves the rule. You reach out with a disclosure, fail, and fall back bitterly into yourself." - Ernest Becker
"When struck by a thunderbolt it is unnecessary to consult the Book of Dates as to the precise meaning of the omen." - Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith
"A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek. I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"Get it straight. Your boy you lose. Love you lose. Honor has been gone for a long time. Duty you do." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"I hope I am not for the killing, Anselmo was thinking. I think that after the war there will have to be some great penance done for the killing. If we no longer have religion after the war then I think there must be some form of civic penance organized that all may be cleansed from the killing or else we will never have a true and human basis for living. The killing is necessary, I know, but still the doing of it is very bad for a man and I think that, after all this is over and we have won the war, there must be a penance of some kind for the cleansing of us all." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"The rich were dull and they drank too much or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Julian and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The very rich are different from you and me." And how someone had said to Julian, "Yes, they have more money."" - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"Don't Shoot! I'm Che. I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" - Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
"The final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand their unrestricted right to self-determination." - Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
"The doctrine of derivation, or theory of descent, as a comprehensive theory of the natural origin of all organisms, assumes that all compound organisms are derived from simple ones, all many-celled animals and plants from single-celled ones, and these last from quite simple primary organisms—from monads. As we see the organic species, the multiform varieties of animals and plants, vary under our eyes through adaptation, while the similarity of their internal structure is reasonably explicable only by inheritance from common parent-forms, we are forced to assume common parent-forms for at least the great main divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and for the classes, orders, and so forth." - Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel
"We have indeed labored to make some of the capital which today helps us to produce – a large fund of scientific, technological, and other knowledge; an elaborate physical infrastructure; innumerable types of sophisticated capital equipment, etc. – but all this is but a small part of the total capital we are using. Far larger is the capital provided by nature and not by man – and we do not even recognize it as such. This larger part is now being used up at an alarming rate, and that is why it is an absurd and suicidal error to believe, and act on the belief, that the problem of production has been solved." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
"In this communication I wish first to show in the simplest case of the hydrogen atom (nonrelativistic and undistorted) that the usual rates for quantization can be replaced by another requirement, in which mention of ‘whole numbersÂ’ no longer occurs. Instead the integers occur in the same natural way as the integers specifying the number of nodes in a vibrating string. The new conception can be generalized, and I believe it touches the deepest meaning of the quantum rules." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
"Anything you are giving your attention to is an invitation to the essence of it. Saying 'I want money, but it will not come,' is the same as saying, 'come to me, absence of money, which I do not want.'" - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"The child is vibrationally receiving your fears, your beliefs, even without your spoken word. If you want to do that which is of greatest value for your child, give thought only to that which you want, and your child will receive only those wanted thoughts." - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff. It is absolutely the amount of joy that you feel." - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"Who you really are is Non-Physical Energy focused in a physical body, knowing full well that all is well and always has been, and always will be. You are here to experience the supreme pleasure of concluding new desires, and then of bringing yourself into vibrational alignment with the new desires that you've concluded, for the purpose of taking thought beyond that which it has been before." - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"If one is a philosopher, he can do nothing else than philosophize; or, if he does something else, he will do it with a view to securing the freedom he needs for philosophizing." - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
"Speaking on the near skepticism of the study of the history of philosophy:" - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
"The very best thing that can happen is that, in despairing of philosophy, they remember that God did not choose to save men through metaphysics, so that its loses be not their loss." - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
"Through this intellect, every man is a person and through the same intellect he can see exactly the same truth as any other man can see, provided they both use their intellects in the proper way. Here, and nowhere else, lies the foundation for the very possibility of a philosophia perennis; for it is, not a perennial cloud floating through the ages in some metaphysical stratosphere, but the permanent possibility for each and every human being to actualize an essence through his own existence, that is to experience again the same truth in the light of his own intellect. And that truth itself is not an anonymous one. Even taken in its absolute and self-subsisting form, truth itself bears a name. Its name is God." - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
"We can recognize the absolute transcendence of revelation by the curious fact of the philosophical and theological multiple meanings of the texts of scripture. When St. Thomas was looking for a sed contra for his question on the existence of God, he does not seem to have found a text in which Yahweh says in so many words, “I exist.” So he had recourse to the statement of Exodus: Ego sum qui sum. But that statement is a reply to the question Moses put to God: When the people ask me who has sent me to them, what shall I answer?" - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
"And yet it is not always in our power to revive the perceptions we have felt. On some occasions the most we can do is by recalling to mind their names, to recollect some of the circumstances atr tending them, and an abstract idea of perception; an idea which we are capable of framing every instant, because we never think without being conscious of some perception which it depends on ourselves, to render genera)." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
"Language was a long time without having any other words than the names which had been given to sensible objects, such as these, tree, fruit, water, fire, and others, which they had more frequent occasion to mention." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
"Thus the most natural order of ideas required, that the government should precede the verb: they said, for example, fruit to want." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
"Dementia is only in the left austerity confuses a noble sentiment with a vile feeling." - Étienne Pivert de Senancour
"Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! he exclaimed. The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise." - Eugen Herrigel
"The pastoral vocation in America is embarrassingly banal. It is banal because it is pursued under the canons of job efficiency and career management. It is banal because it is reduced to the dimensions of a job description. It is banal because it is an idol – a call from God exchanged for an offer by the devil for work that can be measured and manipulated at the convenience of the worker. Holiness is not banal. Holiness is blazing." - Eugene Peterson
"Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest — this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it. As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"Happiness, for you we walk on a knife edge. To the eyes you are a flickering light, to the feet, thin ice that cracks; and so may no one touch you who loves you." - Eugenio Montale
"Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves." - Eustace Budgell
"His tawny beard was thÂ’ equal grace both of his wisdom and his face; in cut and dye so like a tile, a sudden view it would beguile; the upper part thereof was whey, the nether, orange mixt with gray." - Eustace Budgell
"In short, a private education seems the most natural method for the forming of a virtuous man; a public education for making a man of business. The first would furnish out a good subject for PlatoÂ’s republic, the latter a member for a community overrun with artifice and corruption." - Eustace Budgell
"I knew what she meant, and in that moment felt as though I had shaken off some of the dust and grit of ten dry years; then and always, however she spoke to me, in half sentences, single words, stock phrases of contemporary jargon, in scarcely perceptible movements of eyes or lips or hands, however inexpressible her thought, however quick and far it had glanced from the matter in hand, however deep it had plunged, as it often did, straight from the surface to the depths, I knew; even that day when I still stood on the extreme verge of love, I knew what she meant." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
"Lord Copper quite often gave banquets; it would be an understatement to say that no one enjoyed them more than the host, for no one else enjoyed them at all, while Lord Copper positively exulted in every minute." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
"One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
"As we cleanse the inner vessel, there will have to be changes made in our own personal lives, in our families, and in the Church. The proud do not change to improve, but defend their position by rationalizing. Repentance means change, and it takes a humble person to change. But we can do it." - Ezra Taft Benson
"Be a light unto the world, a standard to others. You can live in the world and not partake of the sins of the world. You can live life joyously, beautifully, unmarred by the ugliness of sin. This is our confidence in you." - Ezra Taft Benson
"Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing." - Ezra Taft Benson
"One day in the middle of an important examination in high school, the point of my lead pencil broke. In those days we used pocket knives to sharpen our pencils. I had forgotten my penknife and turned to ask a neighbor for his. The teacher saw this; he accused me of cheating. When I tried to explain, he gave me a tongue-lashing for lying; worse, he forbade me to play on the basketball team in the upcoming game. I could see that the more I protested the angrier he seemed to become. But again and again I stubbornly told what had happened. Even when the coach pleaded my cause, the teacher refused to budge. The disgrace was almost more than I could bear. Then, just minutes before the game, he had a change of heart and I was permitted to play. But there was no joy in it. We lost the game; and though that hurt, by far the deeper pain was being branded a cheat and a liar. Looking back. I know that lesson was God-sent. Character is shaped in just such crucibles. My parents believed me: they were understanding and encouraging. Supported by them and a clear conscience, I began to realize that when you are at peace with your Maker you can, if not ignore human criticism, at least rise above it. And I learned something else - the importance of avoiding even the appearance of evil. Though I was innocent, circumstance made me look guilty. Since this could so easily be true in many of life's situations, I made a resolution to keep even the appearance of my actions above question, as far as possible. And it struck me, too, that if this injustice happened to me, it could happen to others, and I must not judge their actions simply on appearances." - Ezra Taft Benson
"Every bachelor is a hero to some married woman." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken