This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
For a moment I lost myself, actually lost my life. I was set free! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life . . . to life itself. I caught a glimpse of something greater than myself.
Beauty | Dawn | Freedom | Fulfillment | Good | Joy | Life | Life | Lying | Past | Peace | Sound | Unity | Vision | Beauty | Old |
These two arts associated themselves with that of gesture, their elder sister, and known by the name of Dance. From whence there is reason to conjecture, that some kind of dance, and some kind of music and poetry, might have been observed at all times, and in all nations.
Now look here, Smithers. They's two kind's of stealing. They's the small kind, like what you does, and the big kind, like I does. Fo' de small stealing dey put you in jail soon or late. But fo' de big stealin' dey puts your picture in de paper and yo' statue in de Hall of Fame when you croak. If dey's one thing I learned in ten years on de Pullman cars, listenin' to de white quality talk, it's dat same fact. And when I gits a chance to use it . . . from stowaway to emperor in two years. Dat's goin' some!
Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love? Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand? Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched?
Beauty | Earth | Grace | Life | Life | Love | Music | Beauty | Afraid |
A whole tree of lightning stood in the sky. She kept looking out the window, suffused with the warmth from the fire and with the pity and beauty and power of her death. The thunder rolled.
If a pastor is not in touch with joy, it will be difficult to preach or teach convincingly that the news is good.
Excellence | Excellence |
Wait and watch are the two words given to us in our suffering. The words are connected with the image of watchmen waiting through the night for the dawn. There is something you can do, or more exactly, there is someone you can be: be a watchman.
ItÂ’s a wonderful formula for getting to heaven the quickest and easiest way. And virtually foolproof. There is no time to backslide, no temptations to bother with, no doubts to wrestle with, no spouse to have to honor, no kids to put up with, no enemies to love, no more sorrow, no more tears. Instant eternity.
But land is land, and it's safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.
Then the light changed the water, until all about them the woods in the rising wind seemed to grow taller and blow inward together and suddenly turn dark. The rain struck heavily. A huge tail seemed to lash through the air and the river broke in a wound of silver.
When my mother would tell me that she wanted me to have something because she as a child had never had it, I wanted, or I partly wanted, to give it back. All my life I continued to feel that bliss for me would have to imply my mother's deprivation or sacrifice. I don't think it would have occurred to her what a double emotion I felt, and indeed I know that it was being unfair to her, for what she said was simply the truth.
A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe.
There is only one thing to do — take it to the country!
Incompetence | Life | Life | People | Success | System | War |