This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies in plants, herbs, stones, and their true quantities; for naught so vile that on the earth doth live but to the earth some special good doth give; nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
PRINCE HAL: Why, thou owest God a death. FALSTAFF: 'Tis not due yet, I would be loath to pay him before his day.
ORLANDO: Who stays it still withal? ROSALIND: With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.
O, these deliberate fools, when they do choose, they have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
It has become a conviction with me that psychology may in the long run do much to change the conception of the fundamental nature of the religious life, which, on the whole, is now too generally made a matter of doctrine. It is too intellectual At the doors of most churches one is met by required beliefs in a particular conception of God, in a speculative theory about the divinity of Christ, definite ideas concerning sin and salvation, the efficacy of ordinances, and the claims of supernatural revelation. What people are really seeking is access to refreshing fountains of life, sources of strength and guidance. They crave association with people and institutions which may convey to them a sense of what is most worthwhile in life and what may furnish impulsion toward real and enduring values. They know pretty well what those values are when allowed to let their own deepest desires express themselves.
Beginning | Divinity | Excitement | History | Meaning | Metaphysics | Philosophy | Revelation | Science | Temper | Theology | Thought | Work | Thought |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The Self stands indifferent, having seen Nature; Nature desists, having been seen. Though their coexistence continues, there is no motive for creation.
Self |
Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki
It is indeed in many ways more comfortable to belong to that section of society whose action are not publicly canvassed and discussed.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Verily, therefore, the Self is neither bounded nor emancipated, nor does it transmigrate; it is Nature alone, abiding in myriad forms, that is bounded, released and transmigrates.
Self |
Buddhist temples are of three types. I. Temples which are strictly MahÄyÄna. These are temples where bodhisattva monks who are new to training reside. II. Temples which are strictly HÄ«nayÄna. These are temples where only the HÄ«nayÄna and vinaya teachers reside. III. Temples where both MahÄyÄna and HÄ«nayÄna practice together. These are temples where bodhisattva monks who have trained for a long time reside. Now in the Tendai Lotus School the annual ordinands [candidates for ordination] are all new practitioners who have all directed their minds to the MahÄyÄna and for twelve years will be made to reside deep in the mountains at the temple Shishu Sanmai-in 四種三昧院. Upon completion of their training they will provisionally receive the lesser [HÄ«nayÄna] precepts as it benefits others and they will be permitted to provisionally reside in a temple where both [MahÄyÄna and HÄ«nayÄna] practices are carried out.
Man | Object | People | Thought | Time | Waiting | Wrong | Child | Thought |
Of all the know-nothing persons in this world, commend us to the man who has "never known a day's illness." He is a moral dunce, one who has lost the greatest lesson of life; who has skipped the finest lecture in that great school of humanity, the sick-chamber.
It is difficult to believe that a true gentleman will ever become a gamester, a libertine, or a sot.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
These, characteristically different from one another and variously modified by the gunas, present to the intellect (buddhi) the whole purpose of the Self (purusha), illumining it like a lamp.
Experience | Nature | Pain | Self | Suffering |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Without dispositions (bhavas) there would be no subtle body (linga), and without the subtle body there would be no cessation of dispositions. Evolution, therefore, proceeds in two ways, the elemental and the intellectual.
Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.
Better | Death | Immortality | Individual | Self |
Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is an humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.
Enough | Genius | Men | Nations | Thought | Govern | Thought |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Primary matter is not apprehended on account of its extreme subtlety and not because of its non-existence, as it is perceived through its effects. Intellect (mahat) and the rest are effects which are both similar and dissimilar to primarymatter (prakriti).
The Chinese people, too, went through all kinds of vicissitudes in their religious development.