This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
Fortune |
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence.
Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.
Fortune |
The moderation of people in prosperity is the effect of a smooth and composed temper, owing to the calm of their good fortune.
Fortune | Good | Moderation | People | Moderation |
Nature has concealed at the bottom of our minds talents and abilities of which we are not aware. The passions alone have the privilege of bringing them to light, and of giving us sometimes views more certain and more perfect than art could possibly produce.
Fortune |
Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.
The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.
Shine comforts from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight From these that my poor company detest; And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.
Art | Beauty | Death | Enough | Evil | Father | Fortune | God | Good | Government | Heart | Rage | Shame | Tears | Vengeance | Virtue | Virtue | Government | Art | Beauty | God |
So may the outward shows be least themselves. The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt but, being seasoned with a gracious voice, obscures the show of evil? In religion, what damnèd error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts. How many cowards whose hearts are all as false as stairs of sand wear yet upon their chins the beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, who, inward searched, have livers white as milk, and these assume but valor’s excrement to render them redoubted. Look on beauty, and you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight, which therein works a miracle in nature, making them lightest that wear most of it. So are those crispèd snaky golden locks which maketh such wanton gambols with the wind, upon supposèd fairness, often known to be the dowry of a second head, the skull that bred them in the sepulcher. Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore to a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf veiling an Indian beauty—in a word, the seeming truth which cunning times put on to entrap the wisest. Therefore then, thou gaudy gold, hard food for Midas, I will none of thee. Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge ‘tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead, which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught, thy paleness moves me more than eloquence, and here choose I. Joy be the consequence! Merchant of Venice, Act iii, Scene 2
Fortune |
Should all despair that have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind would hang themselves.
Since, then, my office hath so far prevailed That, face to face and royal eye to eye, You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me If I demand before this royal view, What rub or what impediment there is Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not, in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage.
Such a nature, tickled with good success, disdains the shadow which he treads on at noon.
We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we'll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home.
Ego | Fortune | Life | Life | Mind | Perfection | Right | Silence |
We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, 'I've been there.' This was unclear to him at first-I've been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific loacation, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
One of the problems of contemporary culture is that life moves at such a quick pace, we usually don't give ourselves time to feel and listen deeply. You may have to take deliberate action to nurture the soul. If you want to increase your soul's bank account, you may have to seek out the unfamiliar and do things that at first could feel uncomfortable. Give yourself time as you experiment. How will you know if you're on the right track? I like Rumi's counsel: 'When you do something from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.'
Age | Better | Cause | Earth | Enlightenment | Fame | Famous | Fortune | Good | Illusion | Kill | Labor | Light | Man | Mind | Money | People | Present | Problems | Shame | Terrorism | Work | Worry | Instruction | Understand |
Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels, said Dr. Samuel Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.
Duty | Fortune | Kill | Little | Superiority |
Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.
Arrogance | Belief | Duty | Fortune | Infancy | Kill | Little | Lord | Mind | Patriotism | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Superiority | Child |