This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Humility is the modesty of the soul. It is the antidote to pride.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Philosophers never stood in need of Homer or the Pharisees to be convinced that everything is done by immutable laws; that everything is settled; that everything is the necessary effect of some previous cause.
Earth | Nothing | Order | Religion | Sacrifice | Work | Youth | Youth |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.
Life | Life | Order | Revolution |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate efforts to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
Meditation - If I am aware of the nature of my reactions, and movement of my reactions, naturally that awareness will result in freedom from the reaction. I cannot stop the reaction, because the reactions have been rooted in the sub-conscious, in the unconscious. I cannot prevent, I cannot renounce, I cannot check them. But if I am aware, simultaneously of the objective challenge, the subjective reactions and the causes of those reactions, then it results in freedom. Then the momentum of reaction will not carry me over with it, but I will be ahead of the reactions; I will not be a victim of my reaction, but I will see them as I see the objective challenge. That for me is meditation. All-inclusive attention while moving in life. Meditation does not involve any mental activity at all.
Body | Chance | Depression | Health | Indulgence | Order | Orderliness | Quiet | Religion | Will |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I am always hoping to make a discovery here, to express the feelings of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their minglings and their oppositions, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich, yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room.
Worth |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment without being bowed down is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has only known prosperity.
Fighting | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Order | Plan | Reward | Spirit | Strength |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
A fine gentleman like that, they said, had no need of books. Let him leave books, they said, to the palsied or the dying. But worse was to come. For once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.
Advice | Desire | Discontent | Good | Happy | Sense | Worth |
Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.
Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.
I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies; if the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even better.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
If we help an educated man's daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? - not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?