This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Are you now laying the foundations of high Carthage, as servant to a woman?
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.
To my amazement, taut and tearless as I was, I saw him hastily mop his eyes with his handkerchief, and in that moment, when it was too late to respond or to show that I understood, I realised how much more he cared for me than I had supposed or he had ever shown. I felt, too, so bitterly sorry for him because he had to fight against his tears while I had no wish to cry at all, and the intolerable longing to comfort him when there was no more time in which to do it made me furious with the frantic pain of impotent desire. And then, all at once, the whistle sounded again and the train started. As the noisy group moved away from the door he sprang on to the footboard, clung to my hand and, drawing my face down to his, kissed my lips in a sudden vehemence of despair. And I kissed his, and just managed to whisper 'Good-bye!' The next moment he was walking rapidly down the platform, with his head bent and his face very pale. Although I had said that I would not, I stood by the door as the train left the station and watched him moving through the crowd. But he never turned again.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Perhaps, one day, remembering even these things will bring pleasure.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Living from the outer to the inner; that means that you have roving eyes and alert ears to look out at the panorama of society and wonder and hope and contrive to try to get something from the outer that will satisfy the inner.
Experience | Past | Present |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
All we have to do is to receive what we are given...We are given the naturalness to love someone, to be calm in crisis, to ignore self-defeating suggestions, to be pleasant, forgiving, tender, helpful, unworried, brave, energetic.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
You are saved when you invite spiritual perception, which will give you spiritual renewal. The discovery being that truth, God, resides above the way your mind operates in opposites. You rise above the opposites, and truth is there. Your true nature is above your mind. Eventually you won’t think about spirituality. You will know it, you will have it, and you will live it.
Conscience is the amount of inner knowledge that we possess.
François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes. - The flowers fading like our hopes, the leaves falling like our years, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives - all bear secret relations to our destinies.
Abuse | Destiny | Ends | Example | Family | Future | Glory | Humility | Nothing | Search | Silence | Thought | Following | Old | Thought |
And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste Shall others continue, but never complete. For none upon earth can achieve his scheme; The best as the worst are futile here: We wake at the self-same point of the dream,-- All is here begun, and finished elsewhere.
Church | Impression | Little | Present | Receive | Warning |
François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
I have explored the seas of the Old World and the New, and trodden the soil of the four quarters of the Earth. Having camped in the cabins of Iroquois, and beneath the tents of Arabs, in the wigwams of Hurons, in the remains of Athens, Jerusalem, Memphis, Carthage, Granada, among Greeks, Turks and Moors, among forests and ruins; after wearing the bearskin cloak of the savage, and the silk caftan of the Mameluke, after suffering poverty, hunger, thirst, and exile, I have sat, a minister and ambassador, covered with gold lace, gaudy with ribbons and decorations, at the table of kings, the feasts of princes and princesses, only to fall once more into indigence and know imprisonment.
François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
There is virtue in the look of a great man [after meeting Washington]. I felt myself warmed and refreshed by it during the rest of my life.
Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious
Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in all things write the word finis in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent, draw the bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break the strings with our own hand.