This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Who reminds of the past and recall what has been will have his ear cut off.
Etty Hillesum, formally Ester "Etty" Hillesum
The thinking heart of the barracksÂ…
You are on the leading edge of thought, taking thought beyond that which it has been before.
It's the form it takes when it comes out the other side, of course, that gives a story something unique--its life. The story, in the way it has arrived at what it is on the page, has been something learned, by dint of the story's challenge and the work that rises to meet it--a process as uncharted for the writer as if it had never been attempted before.
Both reading and writing are experiences — lifelong — in the course of which we who encounter words used in certain ways are persuaded by them to be brought mind and heart within the presence, the power, of the imagination.
I distinguish three sorts of signs: 1. Accidental signs, or the objects which particular circumstances have connected with some of our ideas, so as to render the one proper to revive the other. 2. Natural signs, or the cries which nature has established to express the passions of joy, of fear, or of grief, 3. Instituted signs, or those which we have chosen ourselves, and bear only an arbitrary relation to our ideas.
Distinction | Distinguish | Experience | Impression | Play | Rest |
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
There are rational proofs by which we can know with certitude that God exists; but the certitude of faith, which is based on the infallibility of the word of God, is infinitely more reliable than all knowledge acquired by natural reason alone, no matter how evident it may be. In matters of revelation, error is absolutely impossible because the source of the knowledge of faith is God Himself, who is the Truth.
I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.
Character | Good | Pleasure | Speech | Thought | World | Think | Thought |
My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.
Immortality | Mortal | People |
It is easy to distinguish two ideas absolutely simple; but in proportion as they become more complex, the difficulties increase. Then as our notions resemble each other in more respects, there is reason to fear lest we take many of them for one only, or at least that we do not distinguish them as much as we might. This frequently happens in. metaphysics and morals. The subject which we have actually in hand, is a very sensible proof of the difficulties that are to be surmounted. On these occasions we cannot be too cautious in pointing out even the minutest differences.
Imagination | Present |
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.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.
Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy
This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.