This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Andrei Bitov, fully Andrei Georgiyevich Bitov
Life has neither material nor idealistic secrecy or mystery about it. Life is equal to itself only, hence perceiving its meaning is out of the question... The exaggeration of our mental abilities has given rise to what we perceive as “the problem” of discerning life’s purpose... If it is beyond our powers to disembowel love and beauty - we can only ravish them - it means that they are given to us not for cognition but for reflection. Similarly, the freedom of choice granted to man, a freedom denied the rest of the living species, is man’s task, a duty to exercise and fulfill, not merely an opportune option.
Beauty | Character | Choice | Duty | Exaggeration | Freedom | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Means | Mystery | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Reflection | Rest | Secrecy | Beauty |
How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by one word spoken in simple and confiding truth of heart! How many a solitary place would be made glad if love were there, and how many a dark dwelling would be filled with light!
Character | Circumstances | Existence | Future | Life | Life | Love | Mystery | Teach | Truth |
Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa
The Indians were religious from the first moments of life. From the moment of the mother’s recognition that she had conceived to the end of the child’s second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence was supremely important. Her attitude and secret meditations must be such to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the Great Mystery and a sense of connectedness with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for the expectant mother... Silence, love, reverence - this is the trinity of first lessons, and to these she later adds generosity, courage and chastity.
Character | Chastity | Courage | Generosity | Important | Influence | Isolation | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Mystery | Reverence | Rule | Sense | Silence | Soul | Child |
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
He is well along the road to perfect manhood who does not allow the thousand little worries of life to embitter his temper, or disturb his equanimity. An undivided heart which worships God alone, and trust him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Character | Equanimity | God | Heart | Life | Life | Little | Temper | Trust | Wants | God |
Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
Seize the day! Put no trust in the morrow.
Life cannot be controlled. It is a mystery inviting us to participate, to risk, to trust fate, to accept the blank rune stone, the unknown. Surrender teaches us not so much to understand as to inhabit the mystery... Once we can accept the larger mystery of Life, we can consciously create within it.
Character | Fate | Life | Life | Mystery | Risk | Surrender | Trust | Understand |