This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Duke Ellington, fully Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
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POLONIUS: My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? POLONIUS: By th'mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed. HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel. POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel. HAMLET: Or like a whale? POLONIUS: Very like a whale. HAMLET: Then I will come to my mother by and by. - They fool me to the top of my bent. - I will come by and by.
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My guru says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it...
Friend | Music | Words | World | Understand |
I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me to not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough--but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
Computer | Day | Earth | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Music | Nature | Nothing | People | Television | Time | World |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Of writing many books there is no end; and I who have written much in prose and verse for others' uses, will write now for mine,— will write my story for my better self, as when you paint your portrait for a friend, who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it long after he has ceased to love you, just to hold together what he was and is.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The place is all awave with trees, limes, myrtles, purple-beaded, acacias having drunk the lees of the night-dew, fain headed, and wan, grey olive-woods, which seem the fittest foliage for a dream.
You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him.
Body | Leisure | Little | Music | Recreation | Sacrifice | Soul | Will | Worth |
Emil G. Hirsch, fully Emil Gustav Hirsch
This instinct for totality, the counterpart of the feeling, gnawing and rankling, of dissatisfaction, is the germ of all religion. But man answers the craving need of a totality and a prospect into the future according to his historical conditions. Therefore all religions are genuine rings. None of them is a counterfeit, and none of them owns exclusively the truth and the whole truth.
Intention | Man | Means | Music | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Value |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you’re lagging, I may remember him!
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall.
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Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. (Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw)
Distress | Earth | Ends | Harmony | Impatience | Music | Struggle | Truth |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.