This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The humble soul is a temple of God, a seat of wisdom, a throne of the word, a house of the consoler, a room of the bridegroom, the receiver of the covenant, a golden throne of grace, a tabernacle of holiness, a place of holy peace, a paradise of pleasure, a closed garden, a sealed fountain, a heavenly dwelling place.
If on earth there be a Paradise of Bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
It is the emancipation from the security of Paradise which is the basis for man’s truly human development.
Those who plot against their companions often unwittingly destroy themselves.
Destroy |
Young men have strong passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately... They have as yet met with few disappointments. Their lives are mainly spent not in memory but in expectation; for expectation refers to the future, memory to the past, and youth has a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first day of one’s life one has nothing at all to remember, and can only look forward... They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to choose what is useful, moral goodness leads us to choose what is noble. They are fonder of their friends, intimates, and companions than older men are, because they like spending their days in the company of others, and have not yet come to value either their friends or anything else by their usefulness to themselves. All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They disobey Chilon’s precept by overdoing everything; they love too much and hate too much, and the same thing with everything else. They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.
Day | Deeds | Expectation | Future | Hate | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Men | Nothing | Past | Precept | Usefulness | Youth | Deeds | Youth | Expectation | Friends | Think | Value |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more then they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.
Paradise | People | Unhappiness | World | Happiness |
Wives are young men’s mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men’s nurses.
In Hell there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, being a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself, is the paradise of the worthless.
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
Men |
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
The earth is a Paradise, the only one we will ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes. We don't have to make it a Paradise - it is one. We have only to make ourselves fit to inhabit it.
John Foster, fully John Watson Foster
What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea - this delightful morning star, indicting that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. The expectation of living here, and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair. But thanks to that fatal decree that dooms us to die; thanks to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life; and thanks above all to that Saviour friend who has promised to conduct the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of Paradise and everlasting delight.
Conduct | Death | Despair | Eternity | Expectation | Friend | Life | Life | Melancholy | Paradise | Sacred | Vision | Expectation |
Knowledge and understanding are life's faithful companions who will never prove untrue to you. For knowledge is your crown, and understanding your staff; and when they are with you, you can possess no greater treasures.
Knowledge | Life | Life | Understanding | Will |
A person needs at intervals to separate himself from his family and companions and go to new places. He must go without his familiars in order to be open to influences, to change.
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions by night, in traveling, in the country.
Adversity | Age | Books | Comfort | Old age | Prosperity | Youth | Old |