This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of everything. An odd gift which spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations. I have decided not to oppose anyone ever again, since I have noticed that I always end by resembling my latest enemy.
Mind |
For years I have been crouching in corners hissing small and ladylike anathema of Theodore Dreiser.
Mind |
An individual dies ... when, instead of taking risks and hurling himself toward being, he cowers within, and takes refuge there.
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
There is granted to everyone after death the opportunity of amending his life, if it is at all possible.
Earnestness | Mind | Power | Spirit | Work |
Man started out on the wrong foot. the misadventure in paradise was the first consequence. The rest had to follow.
One of the reasons the doctors gave for hospitalizing me against my will was that I was ‘gravely disabled.’ To support this view, they wrote in my chart that I was unable to do my Yale Law School homework. I wondered what that meant about much of the rest of New Haven.
The more intense a spiritual leader's appetite for power, the more he is concerned to limit it to others.
Mind |
I am not even talking about the way the judges were hand-picked. Doesn't the overriding idea of discipline, which is the lifeblood of these soldiers, itself undercut their capacity for fairness? Discipline means obedience. When the Minister of War, the commander in chief, proclaims, in public and to the acclamation of the nation's representatives, the absolute authority of a previous verdict, how can you expect a court martial to rule against him?
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
A little Madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the King.
Immortality | Mind |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I have not reached you, but approaches every day yourself you my foot three rivers and even a mountain I must cross. yet a desert, another sea, the trip but I count not, when I stand before you. We proceed easily as snow we stand, the water murmuring softly. rivers, deserts, mountains and sea are traversed by us. Yet death snatches me my price, looking up, he wins.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, and Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life — that in me has rest, as I — undying Life — have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts: unutterably vain; worthless as withered weeds, or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day... The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.
Birth | Body | Earth | Enjoyment | Guarantee | Heart | Human nature | Individual | Liberty | Men | Mind | Nature | Observation | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Restraint | Soul | Study | Teach | Wickedness | Will | World |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel in those days. It is a pity she could not stay content.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
Body | Earth | Fear | Glory | Life | Life | Man | Morality | Pain | Religion | Self-denial | Sorrow | Soul | Struggle |
I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love, and freedom in motherhood.
Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
For that mist may break when the sun is high and this soul forget its sorrow and the rose ray of the closing day may promise a brighter ‘morrow.
Corruption | Enough | Experience | Grief | Hope | Mankind | Mind | Mortal | Trust | Truth | Youth | Youth | Think |