This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There’s a reason they call God a presence- because God is right here, right now.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But since he had the genius to be loved, why let him have the justice to be honored in his grave.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.
There's a joke about a very funny Italian poor man who goes to church every day to pray before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint, please, please, please ... Give me the grace of winning the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks at him and says with a wearily: My son, please, please, please ... buy a ticket. '
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Measure not the work until the day's out and the labour done, then bring your gauges.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech the love I bear thee, finding words enough, and hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, between our faces, to cast light on each? -I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach my hand to hold my spirits so far off from myself--me--that I should bring thee proof in words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood commend my woman-love to thy belief, - seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, and rend the garment of my life, in brief, by a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Nor myrtle--which means chiefly love: and love is something awful which one dare not touch so early o' mornings.
God | Good | Man | Companionship | God |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The music soars within the little lark, and the lark soars.
Man |
There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Mountain gorses, ever-golden. Cankered not the whole year long! Do ye teach us to be strong, howsoever pricked and holden like your thorny blooms and so trodden on by rain and snow, up the hillside of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?
One of the problems of contemporary culture is that life moves at such a quick pace, we usually don't give ourselves time to feel and listen deeply. You may have to take deliberate action to nurture the soul. If you want to increase your soul's bank account, you may have to seek out the unfamiliar and do things that at first could feel uncomfortable. Give yourself time as you experiment. How will you know if you're on the right track? I like Rumi's counsel: 'When you do something from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.'
Age | Better | Cause | Earth | Enlightenment | Fame | Famous | Fortune | Good | Illusion | Kill | Labor | Light | Man | Mind | Money | People | Present | Problems | Shame | Terrorism | Work | Worry | Instruction | Understand |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The critics say that epics have died out with Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods; I'll not believe it. I could never deem as Payne Knight did, that Homer's heroes measured twelve feet high. They were but men: -his Helen's hair turned grey like any plain Miss Smith's who wears a front; And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume as yours last Friday at a turkey-cock. All heroes are essential men, and all men possible heroes: every age, heroic in proportions, double faced, looks backward and before, expects a morn and claims an epos.
It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman's favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil-fish.
Men | Nations | Opinion | Philosophy | Wise |
To no form of religion is woman indebted for one impulse of freedom, as all alike have taught her inferiority and subjection.
The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother.
Beginning | Man | Men | Method | Need | Society | Woman | Society |
Feast, and your halls are crowded fast, and the world goes by succeed and give, and it helps you live but no man can help you die.
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
If I should say the sweetest speech with the eloquentest tongue that ever was in man, I were not able to express that restless care which I have ever bent to govern for the greatest wealth.