This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!
Good | Life | Life | Love | Memoirs | Suffering | Happiness |
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
In tomorrow's world we must all work together as hard as ever, if we're truly to be United Nations
A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy... It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer.
Crime | Duty | History | Insult | Justice | Society | Suffering | Truth | Insult | Society |
Angelique, with both hands open, lying limply on her knees, was giving herself. And Felicien remembered the evening on which she had run barefoot through the grass, so adorable that he had pursued her, and whispered in her ear, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you, the eternal cry that had finally emerged from her wide-open heart. I love you... Take me, carry me away, I am yours.
Care | Cause | Crime | Day | Disgrace | Earth | Exploit | God | Important | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Nature | Pain | Suffering | Tears | World | God | Vice |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
It was a quiet way - he asked if I was his - I made no answer of the tongue but answer of the eyes - and then he bore me on before this mortal noise with swiftness, as of chariots and distance, as of wheels. This world did drop away as acres from the feet of one that leaneth from balloon upon an ether street. The gulf behind was not, the continents were new - eternity was due. No seasons were to us - it was not night nor morn - but sunrise stopped upon the place and fastened in dawn.
Fate | Hope | Land | Little | Loneliness | Peace | Suffering | Fate |
Nothing is more irritating than to hear honest writers protest about depravity when one is quite certain that they make these noises without knowing what they are protesting about.
He was as yet not sufficiently experienced in ruffianism to know that one villain always sacrifices another to advance his own project; he was credulous enough to believe in the old adage of 'honor amongst thieves.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.
Art | Change | Danger | Darkness | Doubt | Dreams | Grief | Guile | Hate | Heart | Hope | Liberty | Life | Life | Pain | Quiet | Reason | Suffering | Suspicion | Thankfulness | Trust | Truth | World | Danger | Art |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Riches I hold in light esteem, and love I laugh to scorn, and lust of fame was but a dream that vanished with the morn. And if I pray, the only prayer that moves my lips for me is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, and give me liberty!' Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'tis all that I implore - in life and death, a chainless soul, with courage to endure.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me,-- the simple news that Nature told, with tender majesty. Her message is committed to hands I cannot see; for love of her, sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me!
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
In work - meaning, in effort, in its pain and sorrow - the subject finds the weight of the existence which involves its existent freedom itself. Pain and sorrow are' the phenomena to which the solitude of the existent is finally reduced.
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
Things are never known in their totality; an essential character of our perception of them is that of being inadequate.
Impossibility | Life | Life | Sense | Suffering |
A dynamic person is one who really makes a difference in the world; who does something that changes things or other people. The magnitude of the work done may not be great, but the world is different because that person has lived and worked. The real secret of a dynamic personality is to believe that God works through you, whatever you may be doing; to put his service first, and to be as sincere, practical, and efficient as you know how.
Dignity | Impossibility | Pain | Suffering |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
A bottle of wine was good company.
One threat to our security comes from our feelings of depression and doubt.
Suffering | Trouble | Propaganda |
Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds.