This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots.
Man |
The sun was lying when he lay so sweet and calm amidst the serenity of the night.
You were wrong to count on me. Who can speak in terms? God and the Failure.
Man |
In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.
Despair | Destroy | Effort | Good | Honor | Innocence | Life | Life | Man | Men | Office | Order | People | Public | Society | War | Society |
Well then! it was the end; his ruin was complete. Even if he mended the cables and lit the fires, where would he find men? Another fortnight's strike and he would be bankrupt. And in this certainty of disaster he no longer felt any hatred of the Montsou bandits; he felt that all had a hand in it, that it was a general agelong fault. They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.
What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?
It is at the family fireside, often under the shelter of the law itself, that the real tragedies of life are acted; in these days traitors wear gloves, scoundrels cloak themselves in public esteem, and their victims die broken-hearted, but smiling to the last. What I have just related to you is almost an every-day occurrence; and yet you profess astonishment.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I measure every Grief I meet with narrow, probing, Eyes; I wonder if It weighs like Mine, or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long, or did it just begin? I could not tell the Date of Mine, it feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, and if They have to try, and whether, could They choose between, it would not be, to die. I note that Some -- gone patient long -- At length, renew their smile. An imitation of a Light that has so little Oil. I wonder if when Years have piled, some Thousands -- on the Harm of early hurt -- if such a lapse could give them any Balm; or would they go on aching still through Centuries above, enlightened to a larger Pain by Contrast with the Love. The Grieved are many, I am told; the reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, and only nails the eyes. There's Grief of Want and Grief of Cold, -- a sort they call Despair; there's Banishment from native Eyes, in sight of Native Air. And though I may not guess the kind correctly, yet to me a piercing Comfort it affords in passing Calvary, to note the fashions of the Cross, and how they're mostly worn, still fascinated to presume that Some are like My Own.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-- Success in Circuit lies too bright for our infirm Delight the Truth's superb surprise as Lightening to the Children eased with explanation kind the Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind--
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Behind Me — dips Eternity — Before Me — Immortality — Myself — the Term between —
Man |
True moral elegance consists in the art of disguising one's victories as defeats.
Man |
Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
Arrogance | Man | Superstition |
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
Body | Earth | Fear | Glory | Life | Life | Man | Morality | Pain | Religion | Self-denial | Sorrow | Soul | Struggle |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
His features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's, with all their beauty annihilated.
Man |