This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Where am I getting the brain space to store these words? I'm hoping that maybe my mind has decided to clear out some old negative thoughts and sad memories and replace them with these shiny new words.
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 |
The culture of Rome just doesn't match the culture of Yoga, not as far as I can see. In fact, I've decided that Rome and Yoga don't have anything in common at all. Except for the way they both kind of remind you of the word toga.
Cause | Desire | Means | Object | Suffering | Will | Happiness | Think |
Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!
Good | Life | Life | Love | Memoirs | Suffering | Happiness |
Ellen Glasgow, fully Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
I have little faith in the theory that organized killing is the best prelude to peace.
Better | Contentment | Happy | Thought | Youth | Youth | Happiness | Thought |
Emil G. Hirsch, fully Emil Gustav Hirsch
Only they have to weep bitter tears who know what has come to them is the result of their foolish conduct, their ignorant way, their want of proper understanding of life and what love means.
Books | Character | Common Sense | Force | Righteousness | Rites | Salvation | Sense | System | World | Happiness |
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
Angels from the Lord lead and protect us every moment and every moment of every moment.
Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.
Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.
Fame |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road alone, and doesn't care about careers, and exigencies never fears; whose coat of elemental brown a passing universe put on; and independent as the sun, associates or glows alone, fulfilling absolute decree in casual simplicity.
Hope | Simplicity | Work | Happiness |
The conscious discovery by you that you have this Power within you, and your determination to make use of it, is the birth of the child. And it is easy to see how very apt the symbol is, for the infant that is born in consciousness is just such a weak, feeble entity as any new-born child, and it calls for the same careful nursing and guarding that any infant does in its earliest days. After a time, however, as the weeks go by, the child grows stronger and bigger, until a time comes when it can well take care of itself; and then it grows and grows in wisdom and stature until, no longer leaning on the mother’s care, the child, now arrived at man’s estate, turns the tables, and repays its debt by taking over the care of its mother. So your ability to contact the mystic Power within yourself, frail and feeble at first, will gradually develop until you find yourself permitting that Power to take your whole life into its care.
Battle | Business | Cause | Change | Character | Day | Destiny | Fame | God | Grief | Hero | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mercy | Need | Obscurity | Obscurity | Problems | Qualities | Success | Trifles | Weakness | Wealth | Will | Loss | Business | God |
Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease. With "smart" technology in the ascendant, it will be hard to resist the allure of a frictionless, problem-free future. When Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, says that "people will spend less time trying to get technology to work…because it will just be seamless," he is not wrong: This is the future we're headed toward. But not all of us will want to go there. A more humane smart-design paradigm would happily acknowledge that the task of technology is not to liberate us from problem-solving. Rather, we need to enroll smart technology in helping us with problem-solving. What we want is not a life where friction and frustrations have been carefully designed out, but a life where we can overcome the frictions and frustrations that stand in our way. Truly smart technologies will remind us that we are not mere automatons who assist big data in asking and answering questions. Unless designers of smart technologies take stock of the complexity and richness of the lived human experience—with its gaps, challenges and conflicts—their inventions will be destined for the SmartBin of history.
Achievement | Balance | Behavior | Better | Failure | People | Regret | Right | Shame | Space | Failure | Trial | Happiness |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
Don't tell me about the scientific advances of the twentieth century. So men are planning a trip to the moon. So computers run every large industry in America. So body organs are being transplanted like perennials. Big deal! You show me a washer that will launder a pair of socks and return them to you as a pair, and I'll light a firecracker.
Fame |
Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch? Jenny asked. Make me, I replied. Beg pardon? Make me, I repeated. Her eyes widened like saucers. You mean like incest? she asked. Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own. Like what, Oliver? she asked, like just what is it he makes you do? The ‘right things’, I said. What’s wrong with the ‘right things’? she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.