This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is no fire like passion, no shark like hatred, no snare like folly, and no torrent like greed.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
We may not be God, but we are of God even as a little drop of water is of the ocean. Imagine it torn away from the ocean and flung millions of miles away; it becomes helpless, torn from its surroundings, and cannot feel the might and majesty of the great ocean. But if someone could point out to it that it was of the ocean, its faith would revive, it would dance with joy and the whole might and majesty of the ocean would be reflected in it.
Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.
Tomorrow |
Ko Hung, aka Ge Hong, courtesy name Zhichuan
If one is moderate in developing one’s justifiable inclinations, and succeeds in freeing oneself of one’s inhibitions, this will not shorten one’s life span, but increase it. All of these things can be compared to fire and water: only their excessive use is harmful.
Enough of us praying often enough could make everybody in the world look up and listen to God. We could transform the world... Prayer is powerful, but it is not the power of a sledge hammer that crushes with one blow. It is the power of sunrays and raindrops which bless, because there are so many of them... When you fill a swamp with stones, a hundred loads may disappear under water before a stone appears on the surface, but all of them are necessary.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The highest good is like that of the water. The goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures, yet itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men disdain.
Keep yourselves away from envy; because it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood.
Robert M. Linder, fully Robert Mitchell Linder
Supported by the authority of all institutions, parenthood has come to amount to little more than a campaign against individuality. Every father and every mother trembles lest an offspring, in act or thought, should be different from his fellows; and the smallest display of uniqueness in a child becomes the signal for the application of drastic measures aimed at stamping out that small fire of noncompliance by which personal distinctness is expressed. In an atmosphere of anxiety, in a climate of apprehension, the parental conspiracy against children is planned.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Authority | Children | Conspiracy | Display | Father | Individuality | Little | Mother | Thought | Child |
Abu’l Fadl al-Suqqari al-Marwazi
When the water surges over the drowning man, then one javelin’s length or a thousand are alike.
Man |
People who know they will die live very carefully. Not careful as in fearful; careful as in full of care. Every word, every act, every relationship holds the possibility of giving birth to something filled with great care. And that thing need not be showy or dramatic, for the most potent spiritual acts are often acts of breathtaking simplicity: a simple prayer, a sip of wine and a piece of bread, a single breath in meditation, a sprinkling of water on the forehead, an exchange of rings, a kind word, a hand on the cheek, a blessing.
Birth | Care | Giving | Meditation | Need | People | Prayer | Relationship | Simplicity | Will |
As the lotus lives in water detached, as the duck floats without drenching, so does one cross the ocean of life. If one’s mind is attuned to the word, one lives with detachment, enshrines the Lord in his mind, and sees the unperceivable and unfathomable.
Detachment | Life | Life | Lord | Mind |
Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.
Conscience | Intolerance | Liberty | Right | Toleration |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
For the water animals, the ocean is like a garden; for the land animals, it is death and pain.
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
By the time a baby born today in the U.S. reaches age 75, (s)he will have used on average: 4,000 barrels of oil, 54,000 pounds of plant matter, 64,000 pounds of animal products, and 43 million gallons of water – and will have produced over 3 million pounds of liquid wastes and 1,500 tons of solid wastes.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Flattery’s fire is hidden. Its sweet taste is apparent, but the smoke is bound to come out at last.
Sa’ib of Tabriz, aka Mirza Muhammad Ali Sa'ib, Saib Isfahani or Sa'ib Of Esfahan NULL
The enjoyments of both worlds will not satisfy the greedy man: burning fire always has an appetite.
Patterns and structure. Everywhere we look we see them. What appears random and chaotic also has order. And on Earth much of the order is linked to interrelationships that drive constant change. Cycles and rhythms. Pulses and flows. Changes in magnetic fields. Continental plates moving. Water cycles. Seasons changing. Life and death. Process and connection. Nature flows through webs of structure and shifting time: from ocean to cloud to rain to river to ocean. Natural rhythms.
Change | Death | Earth | Life | Life | Nature | Order | Time |