This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
There's a country spread out in the sky, a credulous carpet of rainbows and crepuscular plants: I move toward it just a bit haggardly, trampling a gravedigger's rubble still moist from the spade to dream in a bedlam of vegetables.
That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourselves.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The ancient yogic technique convert the breath into mind-stuff. By spiritual advancement one is able to cognize the breath as a mental concept, an act of mind: a dream breath.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
When a man in the process of dreaming becomes conscious that he is dreaming, he is no longer identified with the phenomena; he is not affected exultantly or dolefully. God consciously dreams His cosmic play and is unaffected by it's dualities. A yogi who perceives his real self as separate from his active senses and their objects never becomes attached to anything. He is aware of the dream nature of the universe and watches it without being entangled in its complex but ephemeral nature.
Dreams | God | Man | Nature | Play | Self | Universe | God |
There’s not a stone or leaf or life that men won’t put a name to. It gives them a nice safe box to collect things in. They get in the habit of collecting things and end up surprised at the weight they’re carrying. A dream they thought might fit someday, something bright and sweet like a woman, picked up for her shine and somehow never left or at least never forgotten. Or an ambition! There’s a fine item in any man’s bag. A great, glowing ambition. They never fade, never wear even when you’ve outgrown them. Always there to look at and remember and play might-have-been.
Habit | Life | Life | Men | Play | Safe | Thought | Thought |
Patti Smith, fully Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith
In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. For nothing is more precious than the life force and may the love of that force guide you as you go.
Art | Balance | Force | Life | Life | Love | Nothing | Art |
Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend
Human paint, produce films and videos; they dance, dream and make music; they engage in political action, exchange goods, perform rituals, build houses start wars, act in plays, try to please patrons- and so on... They contain patterns, press the practitioners to "conform" and in this way mold their thought, their perception, their actions, and their discriminative abilities.
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.
Space |
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
Sooner or later people will learn to recognize your worth — if you have any. Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death. Life Is a Dream.
True love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny… Because when everyone dreams, but only a few realize their dreams, that makes cowards of us all… Wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure… Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.
Heart | Language | Love | Man | People | Soul | Will | World |
Decisions are only the beginning of something. When a person takes a decision to dive into what actually holds in the current sweeping around the point did not expect at all even in the dream of the moment decision was taken.
It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting… It's doubt that drives a man onward… It's a good idea always to do something relaxing prior to making an important decision in your life… It's best to accept life as it really is and not as I imagined it to be… It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory… It's not for us to predict the events of the next moment, however, see us move forward, because we have confidence, because we have the faith… It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
Decision | Doubt | Effort | Events | Good | Important | Life | Life | Man | Right | Think |
Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan
I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.
What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity… What we see is not always what exists… What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we would like to dream about. The off-center, in between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught, and in which we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit.