This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
His wife was crying, and he felt nothing; only each time she sobbed in this profound, this silent, this hopeless way, he descended another step into the pit.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Our friends, how seldom visited, how little known — it is true; and yet, when I meet an unknown person, and try to break off, here at this table, what I call “my life”, it is not one life that I look back upon; I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am — Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis; or how to distinguish my life from theirs.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Straightening himself and stealthily fingering his pocket-knife he started after her to follow this woman, this excitement, which seemed even with its back turned to shed on him a light which connected them, which singled him out, as if the random uproar of the traffic had whispered through hallowed hands his name, not Peter, but his private name which he called himself in his own thoughts.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
There's just this… an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined.
Art | Better | Books | Criticism | Enough | Future | History | Hope | Means | Money | Past | Philosophy | Poetry | Research | Thought | Will | Art | Thought |
And whatever he did, he always fell back onto this paradox at the core of his thought. To remain in paradise and become a demon! To re-enter hell and become an angel!
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Think about it. How would a man's day be different if he did not try to force his way through it? By not forcing anything he would avoid the tension and strife that always accompanies forcing. Forcing falls away when we clearly see it as a wrong move. We need only be conscious that anything gained by either subtle or violent force becomes just another chain.
Responsibility | Right | Wrong |
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved. Few people daresay nowadays that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet that is the way love begins, and only that way.
Music |
One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For the sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean.
Hell |
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
Plan |
There is nothing like dogma to produce the dream. There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.
I had rather be hissed for a good verse than applauded for a bad one.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
Danger | Liberty | Responsibility | Danger |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.
Danger | Freedom | Liberty | Responsibility | Story | Danger |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future - sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.
Action | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Problems | Responsibility | Right | Think |
During war times not only one should himself take part in it but also encourage the courageous to do so by creating awareness, zeal and enthusiasm for the war in the society.
Responsibility | Truth | Waiting | War |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
A man who could not see the end of his provisional existence was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
Man | Responsibility | Will |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation -- we are challenged to change ourselves.
Existence | Impossibility | Man | Responsibility | Will |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
It is reserved for man alone to find his very existence questionable, to experience the whole dubiousness of being. More than such faculties as power of speech, conceptual thinking, or walking erect, this factor of doubting the significance of his own existence is what sets man apart from animal.