This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Etty Hillesum, formally Ester "Etty" Hillesum
The thinking heart of the barracksÂ…
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
Thus the same statement that guarantees that God exists and that his most suitable name is He Who Is, also reveals to us the perfect simplicity of the divine essence. And indeed, God did not say: I am this or that, but simply I Am. I am what? I am ‘I Am.’ So, more than ever, the statement of Exodus seems to soar above in a kind of empty space, where the attraction of the weight of philosophy can no longer be felt. The work of reason is good, healthy, and important, for it proves that, left to itself, philosophy can establish with certitude the existence of the primary being whom everyone calls God. But a single word of the sacred text at once puts us in personal relations with him. We say his name, and by the simple fact of saying it, it teaches us the simplicity of the divine essence.
Language was a long time without having any other words than the names which had been given to sensible objects, such as these, tree, fruit, water, fire, and others, which they had more frequent occasion to mention.
Distinguish | Fear | Ideas | Metaphysics | Reason |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame; I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of shame; but I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves, where the rainbows play in the flying spray, 'mid the keen salt kiss of the waves.
My main disappointment was always that a book had to end. And then what? But I don't think I was ever disappointed by the books. I must have been what any author would consider an ideal reader. I felt every pain and pleasure suffered or enjoyed by all the characters. Oh, but I identified!
Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us; itÂ’s about God and how he forms us. ItÂ’s not, in the first place, about what we do or donÂ’t do; itÂ’s about God completing and resting and blessing and sanctifying. These are all things we donÂ’t know much about; they are beyond us but not beyond our recognition and participation.
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She knew now to look slowly and carefully at a face; she was convinced that it was impossible to see it all at once.
Art is never the voice of a country, it is an even more precious thing, the voice of the individual, doing its best to speak, not comfort of any sort, but truth. And the art that speaks it most unmistakably, most directly, most variously, most fully, is fiction.
People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs, and it is difficult to say what makes them onions or hyacinths.
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
He (a new philosopher) still needs to be taught, not this time philosophy, but to philosophize.
IÂ’m a short-story writer who writes novels the hard way, and by accident. You see, all my work grows out of the work itself. It seems to set its form from the idea, which is complete from the start, and a sense of the form is like a vase into which you pour something and fill it up. I have that completely in mind from the beginning, and I donÂ’t realize how far I can wander and yet come back.