This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them 'deadlines'.
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom: Advance our standards, set upon our foes; Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George, Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons! Upon them! Victory sits upon our helms.
Be these juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense; that keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope.
Wisdom |
Though the light and comfort of the outward world keeps even the worst men from any constant strong sensibility of that wrathful, fiery, dark and self-tormenting nature that is the very essence of every fallen unregenerate soul, yet every man in the world has more or less frequent and strong intimations given him that so it is with him in the inmost ground of his soul. How many inventions are some people forced to have recourse to in order to keep off a certain inward uneasiness, which they are afraid of and know not whence it comes? Alas, it is because there is a fallen spirit, a dark, aching fire, within them, which has never had its proper relief and is trying to discover itself and calling out for help at every cessation of worldly joy.
Devotion | Means | Piety | Spirit | Temper | Wisdom | World |
Many people not only lose the benefit, but are even the worse for their mortifications [i.e., sacrifices, abstentions]... because they mistake the whole nature and worth of them: they practice them for their own sakes, as things good in themselves, they think them to be real parts of holiness, and so rest in them and look no further, but grow full of a self-esteem and self-admiration for their own progress in them. This makes them self-sufficient, morose, severe judges of all those that fall short of their mortifications. And thus their self-denials do only that for them which indulgences do for other people: they withstand and hinder the operation of God upon their souls, and instead of being really self-denials, they strengthen and keep up the kingdom of self.
Wisdom |
The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that it is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks.
Belief | Courage | Eternal | Light | Means | Nature | Need | Trust | Wisdom | World |
Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying.
However great the advantages which nature bestows on us, it is not she alone, but fortune in conjunction with her, which makes heroes.
Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL
Should you desire great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads.
When asked about the importance of receiving teachings on dedication, Gape Lama answered, "Whatever Dharma practice we engage in, large or small, we must dedicate the merit. If we fail to dedicate, then whatever merit we have accumulated can be lost very easily in a moment of anger, or in giving rise to any afflictive emotion or action."
There is no mockery like the mockery of that spirit which looks around in the world and believes that all is emptiness.
The world is a spiritual kindergarten where bewildered infants are trying to spell GOD with the wrong blocks.
Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL
You know the sound of two hands clapping; tell me, what is the sound of one hand?
America can't afford a Supreme Court justice -- let alone a chief justice -- with Roberts' record of eroding the rights of workers and turning back the clock on civil rights. There's no mistaking that he's a stealth right-wing candidate.
I was impressed by the earnestness of your struggle to find a purpose for the life of the individual and of mankind as a whole. In my opinion there can be no reasonable answer if the question is put this way. If we speak of the purpose and goal of an action we mean simply the question: which kind of desire should we fulfill by the action or its consequences or which undesired consequences should be prevented? We can, of course, also speak in a clear way of the goal of an action from the standpoint of a community to which the individual belongs. In such cases the goal of the action has also to do at least indirectly with fulfillment of desires of the individuals which constitute a society.