This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Now, believe me, God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.
Excellence | God | Good | Impulse | Life | Life | Longing | Time | Excellence | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
As the servant longs for the master’s hand, so craves the cantor’s soul, O extend Thy mercy upon him, rend his debt-recording scroll. "Unto Me return, then will I to thee"—were this Thy word unsaid, Like a captain humbled while at his post he now would droop his head. To Thy servant, Lord, Thou wilt surely ope the penitential way, May his fruit be sweet as he stands to lead our prayers to Thee to-day. As we watch our brother, behold, we note the grey that streaks his hair, And his heart a-swim in a sense of sin as praying stands he there. Let the fervent breath of Thy suppliant be witness for his heart, Let him but return to Thee this once, he never will depart.
Aims | Awe | Birth | Day | Dread | Fear | Impulse | Lord | Love | Man | Warning |
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
Goethe's thinking was mobile. It followed the whole growth process of the plant and followed how one plant form is a modification of the other. Goethe's thinking was not rigid with inflexible contours; it was a thinking in which the concepts continually metamorphose. Thereby his concepts became, if I may put it this way, intimately adapted to the process that plant nature itself goes through.
Capability | Earth | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Morality | Receive | Understanding | Will |
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.
Abuse | Balance | Death | Desire | Government | Impulse | Individual | Justice | Little | Man | Order | People | Power | Struggle | System | Weakness | Will | Government |
Statius, fully Publius Papinius Statius NULL
Heaven forbids that man should know what change tomorrow's fate may bring.
Impulse |
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
A secret and ardent stirring within the frozen chastity of the universal.
Abstract | Achievement | Age | Ambition | Character | Eternal | Existence | Good | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Organic | Personality | Question | Regard | Silence | Time | Ambition |
The seductive appeal of objective reality depends on a mistake. It is not the given. Sometimes ... the truth is not found by traveling as far away from one's personal perspective as possible.
Impulse | Mind | Objectivity | Philosophy | Principles | Question | Reality | Thinking | Understanding | Waste | Weakness | Will | Work | World | Think | Understand |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Civilization is the order and freedom is promoting cultural activity.
Curiosity | Fear | Impulse | Insecurity | Knowledge | Man | Order | Understanding |
Am I a space man? Do I belong to a new race on Earth, bred by men from outer space in embraces with Earth women? Are my children offspring of the first interplanetary race? Has the melting-pot of interplanetary society already been created on our planet, as the melting-pot of all Earth nations was established in the U.S. A. 190 years ago?
Anxiety | Anxiety | Destroy | Ego | Impulse | Object | Pleasure | Wants | Will |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; the question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
I just don't see anything available that gives any reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope around, hoping to 'get lucky' with other people's money. I am not attuned to this market environment, and I don't want to spoil a decent record by trying to play a game I don't understand just so I can go out a hero.
When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you are young. It is almost like looking down from heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half-awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you just don't know it.
Impulse |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
For me, the work is an absolute necessity. I cannot put it off; I don't care for anything else; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once, and I become melancholy when I cannot go on with my work. I feel then as the weaver does when he sees that his threads have got tangled, the pattern he had on the loom has gone to the deuce, and his exertion and deliberation are lost.
Impulse |