This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquility and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him – he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at. The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him. He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it. If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.
That earth which formerly was water upon the ocean (of space), which the wise (seers) found out by their skillful devices; whose heart is in the highest heaven, immortal, surrounded by truth, shall bestow upon us brilliancy and strength, (and place us) in supreme sovereignty.
The Lord is your Staff and Support. Do not discard it; do not be led away from the path of faith by stories invented by malice and circulated by spite.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
Man is not an omipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.
If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
To possess taste, one must have some soul.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
If you love life, the fear of death.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The war is not so expensive that bondage.
Practice | Usefulness | Virtue | Virtue |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
High place is quick to educate high minds.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
We are almost always guilty of the hate we encounter.