This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is a very helpful insight to say we are vehicles for our DNA, we are hosts for DNA parasites which are our genes. Those are insights which help us to understand an aspect of life. But it's emotive to say, that's all there is to it, we might as well give up going to Shakespeare plays and give up listening to music and things, because that's got nothing to do with it. That's an entirely different subject.
Insight | Listening | Music | Nothing | Understand |
Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.
in accidents blindness chance conviction cosmology day death despair doubt feeling force harmony heart intelligence listening music Peace purpose reason Silence universe
Chance | Day | Death | Despair | Doubt | Force | Harmony | Heart | Intelligence | Listening | Music | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Silence |
The Sound of the Trees - I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay. My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I watch trees sway, From the window or the door. I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.
Nil admirari is the motto which men of the world always affect. They think it vulgar to wonder, or be enthusiastic. They have so much corruption and so much charlatanism that they think the credit of all high qualities must be delusive.
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes towards Man, out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence - trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening.
Art | Church | Consciousness | Dependence | Evolution | Listening | Religion | Revelation | Sacred | Unity | Words | Art |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The sword of reality is the saint's protection.
Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with Him continually, and you will not sin, will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.
Better | Compassion | Conversation | Listening | Story |
Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
The criminal excesses of unlimited capitalistic liberty had soon been checked thanks to the unlimited liberty of the press.
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
Never pretend to a love you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.
Compassion | Listening |
Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.
We cannot discover ourselves without first discovering the universe, the earth, and the imperatives of our own being. Each of these has a creative power and a vision far beyond any rational thought or cultural creation of which we are capable.
Conversation | Listening | Talking |