This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend of his faults… To speak painful truth through loving words – that is friendship.
Friend | Truth | Words | Friendship |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
For that man is detested by me as the gates of hell, whose outward words conceal his inmost thoughts.
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Deeds are mightier than words are, actions mightier than boastings.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
Language | Words | Friendship |
The quality of impeccability entails realizing how precious life is, even though it is transient, and how each of our actions and words does count, affecting all beings around us in a profound way. There is nothing inconsequential in this universe, and we need to personally respect this fact and act in accordance with it.
Life | Life | Need | Nothing | Respect | Universe | Words | Respect |
Slogans are both exciting and comforting, but some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words and phrases.
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign asters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.
Darkness | Effort | Law | Light | Man | Mankind | Nature | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Question | Reality | Reason | Right | Sense | System | Will | Words | Wrong | Govern |
We see that music does not merely take place within time. It also exalts and surmounts time. It is not just that the past and present merge. The future is also involved to the extent that within the harmonious progression of music the note sounding 'now' anticipates the future note in which it will be resolved The not to come is, as it were, contained in the present note, which could not otherwise 'summon' it. Anyone musical knows that it is hardly possible to break off certain cadences before the final note. The final note is 'there' whether it is played or not. It may sound out later - or not at all - but, viewed in a higher sense, it was to be heard much earlier. Time only completes what became necessary outside of time. It merely makes manifest what would otherwise have remained hidden.
Future | Music | Past | Present | Sense | Sound | Time | Will |
Some of mankind’s most errible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.