This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley
When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears.
Fury | Grace | Hero | Music | Novelty | Pain | Poverty | Self-love | Thought | Novelty | Thought |
Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn
With all our failings, we are not helpless. The spirit of Christ can make a difference in us. Let's be honest in acknowledging our wrongs, but let's be sincere about our discipleship. Men can forgive. They can love their enemies. Granted the resentments that we all feel from time to time, the question is: What will we do about them? Will we let them erupt in violent antagonisms, or seethe inside us until they produce ulcers or nervous breakdowns or plain misery? Or will we find that Christ's spirit can move us to turn hatred to love? We can nurse our anger, cherish our vindictiveness. Or we can come clean and find peace with God and ourselves, and even with our enemies. When we are most disappointed in others we can say, with the old African pastor in Alan Paton's novel, "God forgives us. Who am I, not to forgive?"
God | Love | Peace | Question | Spirit | Time | Will | God | Old |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
We do not deny any nation's legitimate interest in security. But protecting the security of one nation by robbing another of its national independence and national traditions is not legitimate. In the long run, it is not even secure.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The Beloved - One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked: 'Who is there?' He answered: 'It is I.' The voice said: 'There is no room here for me and thee.' The door was shut. After a year of solitude and deprivation this man returned to the door of the Beloved. He knocked. A voice from within asked: 'Who is there?' The man said: 'It is Thou.' The door was opened for him.
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Love has cast me into a furnace, love has cast me into a furnace, I am cast into a furnace of love. My new Bridegroom, the loving Lamb, gave me the nuptial ring; then having cast me into prison, He cleft my heart, and my body fell to the ground. Those arrows, propelled by love, struck me and set me on fire. From peace He made war, and I am dying of sweetness. The darts rained so thick and fast, that I was all in agony. Then I took a buckler, but the shafts were so swift that it shielded me no more; they mangled my whole body, so strong was the arm that shot them. He shot them so powerfully, that I despaired of parrying them; and to escape death, I cried with all my might: 'Thou transgressest the laws of the camp.' But he only set up a new instrument of war, which overwhelmed me with fresh blows. So true was His aim, that He never missed. I was lying on the ground, unable to move my limbs. My whole body was broken, and I had no more sense than a man deceased; Deceased, not by a true death, but through excess of joy. Then regaining possession of my body, I felt so strong, that I could follow the guides who led me to the court of heaven.
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
The world has many poor in spirit, but not in the right way; and many who mourn, but over money matters and loss of children; and many who are meek, but in the face of impure passions; and many who hunger and thirst, but to rob another's goods and to profit unjustly. And there are many who are merciful, but to the body and to its comforts; and clean of heart, but out of vanity; and peacemakers, but who subject the soul to the flesh; and many who suffer persecution, but because they are disorderly; many who are reproached, but for shameful sins.
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
Nothing |
Sammy Davis, Jr., born Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr.
If you want to get known as a singer you hire five sexy chicks and let them fight over you onstage and for the cameras. That's publicity, man.
We ask for State legislation, and we are told to go to the Federal Government; we come to the Federal Government and it is contended that these things rightfully belong to the States. It does not make a particle of difference. If we come here to the Federal Government and ask for remedial legislation, we are told that these things will come when they become a custom, and not by legislation. And then we go to employers, to their companies, and ask them to confer with us in order to inaugurate that custom, and they tell us, If you do not get out of here we will put a boot in the place where it will feel uncomfortable. If we strike or ask that the matter be submitted to arbitration, we are told there is nothing to arbitrate. If we strike in order to enforce what we believe to be our rights, we are enjoined; and if we exercise what we believe to be our rights in spite of the injunction, we are guilty of contempt of court and are put in the jug during his honor's pleasure. There is not anywhere we can go for the purpose of trying to bring about some remedy, some change, some improvement but we are met by the same opposition, prompted by the same cause, prompted by the same motive, and that is to leave the workingman helpless to the mercy of the employing class. I think, though, I may say that that time has gone by. The workingmen of our country have learned somewhat of their rights, and they propose to stand by them, and they have the courage to do so, too.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Hero |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Disease is a physical process that generally begins that equality which death completes.
Consciousness | Death | Entertainment | Equality | Gloom | Glory | Hero | Little | Man | Mortal | Nothing | Will | Wit | Instruction |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power.
The end was surely near, ... The Nazis killed you only when you were naked, because they knew, psychologically, that naked people never resist.
Danger | Technology | Danger |
That... is why the neo-Nazis had to do anything they could to question its authenticity.
He did not want to be buried in Austria, as he was afraid his grave will be mutilated.
Idealism | Technology |
To claim that theft or adultery or lying are evil simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity.
There is nothing that comes closer to true humility than the intelligence. It is impossible to feel pride in one's intelligence at the moment when one really and truly exercises it.
Detachment | Lying | Pain | Present |
Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
To tell you plainly, I am determined to fly every convention of bishops; for I never yet saw a council that ended happily. Instead of lessening, they invariably augment the mischief. The passion for victory and the lust of power (you will perhaps think my freedom intolerable) are not to be described in words. One present as judge will much more readily catch the infection from others than be able to restrain it in them. For this reason, I must conclude that the only security of one’s peace and virtue is in retirement.