This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Repentance is a hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, and is a sincere resolution and endeavor, to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. It does not consist in one single act of sorrow, but in doing works meet for repentance; in a sincere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our lives.
God | Law | Obedience | Past | Power | Repentance | Resolution | Sorrow | Wisdom |
And in the end, through the long ages of our quest for light, it will be found that truth is still mightier than the sword. For out of the welter of human carnage and human sorrow and human weal the indestructible thing that will always live is a sound idea.
O ye princes and rulers, how exceeding strong is wine! It causeth all men to err that drink it; it maketh the mind of the king and the beggar to be all one, of the bondsman and the freeman, of the poor man and of the rich; it turneth also every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt; it changeth and elevateth the spirits and enliventh the heavy hearts of the miserable; it maketh a man forget his brethren, and draw his sword against his best friends.
Debt | Man | Men | Mind | Mirth | Sorrow | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use it when we please... Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil.
Consideration | Evil | Good | Joy | Mind | Power | Present | Sense | Sorrow | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.
Ramon Llul, aka Raymond Lully, Raymond Lull, Raimundus, Raymundus Lullus or Lullius
Between hope and fear, love makes her home. She lives on thought, and then she is forgotten, dies. So unlike the pleasure of this world are their foundations.
Martial, full name Marcus Valarius Martialis NULL
Of no day can the retrospect cause pain to a good man, nor has one passed away which he is unwilling to remember: the period of his life seems prolonged by his good acts; and we may be said to live twice, when we can reflect with pleasure on the days that are gone.
Cause | Day | Good | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Pleasure | Wisdom |
Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life; for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful.
Enough | Heart | Life | Life | Nature | Object | Reward | Sympathy | Will | Wisdom |
William (Morley Punshon) McFee
It may be that, while we plodding realists go on, for ever preoccupied with our daily chores, abstracting a microscopic pleasure from each microscopic duty, your true romantic has the truer vision, and beholds, afar off, in all its lurid splendour and terrible proportions, the piquant adventure we call life.
Adventure | Duty | Life | Life | Pleasure | Vision | Wisdom |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The remembrance of pleasure doubles our pain.