This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This earth is a garden, this life a banquet, and it's time we realized that it was given to all life, animal and man, to enjoy.
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
People use the word "natural" ... What is natural to me is these botanical species which interact directly with the nervous system. What I consider artificial is 4 years at Harvard, and the Bible, and Saint Patrick's cathedral, and the sunday school teachings.
Mind |
If the master gets drunk it is an honorable drunkenness; if the servant does it is evidence of his mean disposition.
The discipline which corrects the baseness of worldly passions, fortifies the heart with virtuous principles, enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes it with enjoyment from within itself, is of more consequence to real felicity, than all the provisions we can make of the goods of fortune.
Beauty | Genius | Good | Little | Mind | Power | Rest | Sensibility | Taste | Words | Beauty |
Certain people have a way of saying things that shake us at the core. Even when the words do not seem harsh or offensive, the impact is shattering. What we could be experiencing is the intent behind the words. When we intend to do good, we do. When we intend to do harm, it happens. What each of us must come to realize is that our intent always comes through. We cannot sugarcoat the feelings in our heart of hearts. The emotion is the energy that motivates. We cannot ignore what we really want to create. We should be honest and do it the way we feel it. What we owe to ourselves and everyone around is to examine the reasons of our true intent.
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist. The old distinction between artists and scientists must vanish. Every time we teach a child correct usage of an external symbol, we must spend as much time teaching him how to fission and reassemble external grammar to communicate the internal. The training of artists and creative performers can be a straightforward, almost mechanical process. When you teach someone how to perform creatively (ie, associate dead symbols in new combinations), you expand his potential for experiencing more widely and richly.
The elevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, eloquence, and history are often bringing under our view naturally tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illustrious and great.
Baseness | Discipline | Enjoyment | Heart | Mind |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines and goddesses into muses. Who can guess into what it will turn us nymphs?
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.
Better | Day | Death | Little | Mind | Mystery | Need | Reason | Size | Soul | Will | Think |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
A sudden squawked command caused everyone within earshot to act for a split second as if they were shaking invisible martinis
A surfeit of the sweetest things the deepest loathing of the stomach brings.
A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket-- Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at III, iv)
ALBANY: Well, you may fear too far. GONERIL: Safer than trust too far.
And from each other look thou lead them thus till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
And where two raging fires meet together; they do consume the thing that feeds their fury. Though little fire grows great with little wind, yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all. Taming of the Shrew, Act ii, Scene 1
Gentleness | Pity | Will | Forgive |
Can’t help it? Nonsense! What we are is up to us. Our bodies are like gardens and our willpower is like the gardener. Depending on what we plant—weeds or lettuce, or one kind of herb rather than a variety, the garden will either be barren and useless, or rich and productive. If we didn’t have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions and desires, our bodily urges would take over. We’d end up in ridiculous situations. Thankfully, we have reason to cool our raging lusts. In my opinion, what you call love is just an offshoot of lust. Othello, Act I, Scene 3
Better | Care | Duty | Fear | Flattery | Little | Lord | Man | Men | Mind | Time | Will | Words | Following |
Better conquest never canst thou make, than warn thy constant and thy nobler parts against giddy, loose suggestions.