This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We must extend the boundaries of our lives beyond the dates enclosed by our birth and death and acquire an understanding of God’s way as something larger and more complete than the anecdotes in our private diaries. Otherwise, we will always be “mistaking a sore throat for a descent into hell.”
Desire | Fulfillment | God | Growth | Infancy | Means | God | Blessed |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room.
Means | Mind | Psychology | Will |
In forming a habit of communicating to one another this fort of ideas by actions, mankind accustomed themselves to determine them; and from that time they began to find a greater ease in connecting them with other signs.
I wish him well. Now he can continue to pursue his dream of excellence in education.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
It wasn't the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog. It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you anymore. ItÂ’s the foghorn I hate. It won't let you alone. It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
I am so far from being a pessimist... on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.
Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft. The pupil follows out his intention with untiring industry. As though he had no higher aspirations he bows under his burden with a kind of obtuse devotion, only to discover in the course of years that forms which he perfectly masters no longer oppress but liberate. He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.
Your question is already answered by the fact that I made you take a test. You have now reached a stage where teacher and pupil are no longer two persons, but one. You can separate from me any time you wish. Even if broad seas lie between us, I shall always be with you when you practice what you have learned. I need not ask you to keep up your regular practicing, not to discontinue it on any pretext whatsoever, and to let no day go by without your performing the ceremony, even without bow and arrow, or at least without having breathed properly. I need not ask you because I know that you can never give up this spiritual archery. Do not ever write to me about it, but send me photographs from time to time so that I can see how you draw the bow. Then I shall know everything I need to know.
Choice | Difficulty | Right | Will |
Song and dance are the result of an excess energy. When we are normal we talk, when we are dying we whisper, but when there is more in us than we contain we sing. When we are healthy we walk, when we are decrepit we shuffle, but when we are beyond ourselves with vitality we dance.
Death | Neutrality | Will |
A willingness enemy s' attaches me to hold in a state of suspension and obstacles to me fooled by the things vague and the expectations evasive.
Mrs. Watts and Mrs. Carson were both in the post office in Victory when the letter came from the Ellisville Institute for the Feeble-Minded of Mississippi. Aimee Slocum, with her hand still full of mail, ran out in front and handed it straight to Mrs. Watts, and they all three read it together. Mrs. Watts held it taut between her pink hands, and Mrs. Carson underscored each line slowly with her thimbled finger. Everyone else in the post office wondered what was up now.
If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. There must be an organic unity between past and future lived in the present.
Experience | Feelings | Heart | Little | Need | Past | People | Will | Work | Value |
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
Modern philosophy has been created by laymen, not by churchmen, and to the ends of the natural cities of men, not to the end of the supernatural city of God.