This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.
Existence | Receive | Superiority |
Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.
When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
She took her hand and raised her brush. For a moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstasy in the air. Where to begin?--that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the risk must run; the mark made.
It is a charming quality of the happiness we inspire in others that, far from being diminished like a reflection, it comes back to us enhanced.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.
Need | Superiority |
Move ahead. Give proper Nourishment to the body. May your hands,legs and body not be destroyed by death.
Even now we should engage ourselves in such actions that lead to national development, growth and progress.
The plants whose father was the sky, whose mother the earth, Whose root the (heavenly) ocean--may those divine herbs aid thee in obtaining a son.
Superiority | Loss |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
If you can see a thing whole, he said, it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives. . . . But close up, a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you loose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful earth is, is to see it from the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death. That's all right for Urras. Let it stay off there and be the moon-I don't want it! But I am not going to stand up on a gravestone and look down on life and say, 'O lovely!' I want to see it whole right in the middle of it, here, now. I don't give a hoot for eternity. It's nothing to do with eternity, said Shevek, grinning, a thin shaggy man of silver and shadow. All you have to do to see life as a whole is to see it as mortal. I'll die, you'll die; how could we love each other otherwise? The sun's going to burn out, what else keeps it shining? Ah! your talk, your damned philosophy! Talk? It's not talk. It's not reason. It's hand's touch. I touch the wholeness, I hold it. Which is moonlight, which is Takver? How shall I fear death? When I hold it, when I hold in my hands the light-Don't be propertarian, Takver muttered. Dear heart, don't cry. I'm not crying. You are. Those are your tears. I'm cold. The moonlight's cold. Lie down. A great shiver went through his body as she took him in her arms. I'm afraid, Takver, he whispered.
What I am about to say may sound provocative, but I feel more and more strongly that even these ideas are not enough, that we must go farther and deeper.
Authority | Morality | Order | Responsibility | Science | Understanding | Will |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Sometimes a lengthened period of prosperity melts away in a moment; just as the heat of summer flies before a day of tempest.
Deviation from either truth or duty is a downward path, and none can say where the descent will end. - "He that despiseth small things shall fall by little and little."
Excellence | Respect | Superiority | Excellence | Respect |
Unbelief, in distinction from disbelief, is a confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. - "Agnostic" is but the Greek for "ignoramus."