This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
BENVOLIO: Romeo, away, be gone! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain: — Stand not amaz'd: — the Prince will doom thee death, if thou are taken: — hence! — be gone! — away! ROMEO: O, I am fortune's fool! BENVOLIO: Why dost thou stay? Romeo and Juliet, Act iii, Scene 1
Can you not see? Or will ye not observe the strangeness of his altered countenance? With what a majesty he bears himself, how insolent of late he is become, how proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself? We know the time since he was mild and affable, and if we did but glance a far-off look, immediately he was upon his knee, that all the court admired him for submission; but meet him now and, be it in the morn, when everyone will give the time of day, he knits his brow and shows an angry eye and passeth by with stiff unbowèd knee, disdaining duty that to us belongs. Small curs are not regarded when they grin, but great men tremble when the lion roars, and Humphrey is no little man in England. First note that he is near you in descent, and should you fall, he is the next will mount. Me seemeth then it is no policy, respecting what a rancorous mind he bears and his advantage following your decease, that he should come about your royal person or be admitted to your highness' council. By flattery hath he won the commons' heart; and when he please to make commotion, 'tis to be feared they all will follow him. Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted. Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden and choke the herbs for want of husbandry. The reverent care I bear unto my lord made me collect these dangers in the duke. If it be fond, call it a woman's fear; which fear if better reasons can supplant, I will subscribe and say I wronged the duke. My lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York, reprove my allegation if you can, or else conclude my words effectual. Henvry VI, Part II, Act iii, Scene 1
CAMILLO: Prosperity's the very bond of love, whose fresh complexion and whose heart together affliction alters. PERDITA: One of these is true: I think affliction may subdue the cheek, but not take in the mind.
Q: What is your single most important cooking tool? A: A spoon. The most indispensable kitchen tool is also the most basic, and often the most misused. I'm particular about the spoons used at both Blue Hills — we use one kind, and I think it's the right-size spoon for plating and the right-size spoon for tasting. It's not too big; it's not too small. I want everyone to have the same consistency, because the spoon — whether you're flipping a piece of fish, or you're stirring rice, or you're tasting a sauce — becomes an extension of your hand.
Conversation | Enough | Hate | Life | Life | Need | Truth | Will | Afraid |
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not nor I cannot love you? A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iv, Scene 2
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
Age | Chance | Disease | Good | Habit | Hate | Life | Life | Little | Luxury | People | Thinking | Time | Will | Learn | Think |
Nor is it a valid objection to say "that, by such a rule, we are making every man a judge in his own case." In the courts of morality it cannot be otherwise; a pure and just system of thinking admits not of the existence of any infallible judge to whom we can appeal. It might indeed be further objected "that, by this rule, men will be called upon to judge in the moment of passion and partiality, instead of being referred to the past decisions of their cooler reason." But this also is an inconvenience inseparable from human affairs. We must and ought to keep our selves open, to the last moment, to the influence of such considerations as may appear worthy to influence us. To teach men that they must not trust their own understandings is not the best scheme for rendering them virtuous and consistent. On the contrary, to inure them to consult their understanding is the way to render it worthy of becoming their director and guide.
But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more commonplace happinesses which we get are 'reliefs,' occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic embodiments, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It cares no longer to escape. It consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice — inwardly it knows it to be permanently overcome. ... In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there — that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
Day | Death | Insight | Little | Man | Method | Mind | Patience | Psychology | Style | Success | Superiority | Tenacity | Thought | Uncertainty | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Thought |
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
Hate |
So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last forever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.