This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing
The Lotus opens. Movement from earth, through water, from fire to air. Out and in beyond life and death now, beyond inner and outer, sense and non-sense, meaning and futility, male and female, being and non-being, Light and darkness, void and full. Beyond all duality, or non-duality, beyond and beyond. Disincarnation. I breathe again.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
A person must know that Gods glory fills the entire world (Isiah 6), and there is no place void of Him (Tikunei Zohar), and He fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds (Zohar)
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive. Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days, be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang. Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent. To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums, joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
God dwelleth high above man’s dwelling-place, Ye multitudes, come praise and honour Him, Huzzah before the King whose name is God, Sound joyous flourishes upon the trumpet. His creatures fear His glory more than man When awful deeds are wrought, for dread is He. The day shall be when at the sound of trumpet Thy people to the Mount of Olives flock, And they, according to Thy word, shall go With shouting and with tumult and perceive The thunders, lightnings, and the trumpet’s sound. Regard the people nestling in Thy shadow, And trustfully proclaiming that perchance Again the Lord of hosts will gracious be And marvels once again be wrought in thunder And lightning and thick cloud upon the Mount And pealing of the Shofar. Consecrate Yourselves again to-day unto His service, And should again your glad redemption dawn, Uplift yourselves sublime above all else, And mark the banner flown upon the mountains What time the horn resounds. O Lord, whose dread Sets all the world’s inhabitants a-tremble, Be herald of good tidings to the people, So staunch beneath the adversary’s yoke. Thus when the ram’s horn poureth forth its note And ye shall hear the Shofar’s long-drawn peal, Thanksgiving offer up to God and song, And tell His mighty deeds and chant His praise According to the measure of His greatness. O praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, So shall the Merciful show graciousness To you who cry, and as of old restore Your captives, yea the Lord of hosts o’er you Shall keep His watch, with trumpet-blasts for warning.
Acceptance | Darkness | Day | Dread | Evil | Glory | God | Good | Light | Man | Praise | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall understand the mysteries of Thy creations? For Thou hast exalted above the ninth sphere the sphere of Intelligence. It is the Temple confronting us, "The tenth that shall be sacred to the Lord," It is the Sphere transcending height, To which conception cannot reach, And there stands the veiled palanquin of Thy glory. From the silver of Truth hast Thou cast it, And of the gold of Reason hast Thou wrought its arms, And on a pillar of Righteousness set its cushions And from Thy power is its existence, And from and toward Thee its yearning, "And unto Thee shall be its desire."
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall utter Thy mighty deeds, For Thou madest a division of the ball of the earth into twain, half dry land, half water, And didst surround the water with the sphere of air, In which the wind turneth and turneth in its going, And resteth in its circuits, And didst encompass the air with the sphere of fire, And the foundations of these four elements are but one foundation, And their sources one, And from it they issue and are renewed, "And from thence was it separated and became four heads."
Art | Existence | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Power | Universe | Wisdom | Art |
Rose-Morals - I. -- Red. Would that my songs might be What roses make by day and night -- Distillments of my clod of misery Into delight. Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast As yon red rose, and dare the day, All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest? Say yea -- say yea! Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye; The wind is up; so; drift away. That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, I strive, I pray. II. -- White. Soul, get thee to the heart Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there -- There breathe the meditations of thine art Suffused with prayer. Of spirit grave yet light, How fervent fragrances uprise Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white Virginities! Mulched with unsavory death, Grow, Soul! unto such white estate, That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath, Thy work, thy fate.
Battle | Blasphemy | Contemplation | Day | Death | Dreams | Hate | Law | Life | Life | Little | Love | Need | Rage | Riches | Right | Self | Sense | Silence | Smile | Soul | Sound | Speech | Spirit | Terror | Time | Wrong | Riches | Contemplation | Old |
Rose Macauley, fully Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay
Words, those precious gems of queer shape and gay colours, sharp angles and soft contours, shades of meaning laid one over the other down history, so that for those far back one must delve among the lost and lovely litter that strews the centuries. They arrange themselves in the most elegant odd patterns; the sound the strangest sweet euphonious notes; they flute and sing and taber, and disappear, like apparitions, with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang.
Body | Despair | Fear | Life | Life | Mortal | Will | Loss | Poem |
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you! So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo! Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs: You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!
Motives |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise. Drink all your passion, and be a disgrace. Close both eyes to see with the other eye.
Sacha Guitry, fully Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry
A man must marry only a very pretty woman in case he should ever want some other man to take her off his hands.
Action |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul is wearied and fatigued by its desires… the (desires) disturb it, allowing it not to rest in any place or in any thing soever.… the desires and indulgence in them all cause it greater emptiness and hunger.
Experience | Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord is broken, the bird cannot fly. so the soul, held by the bonds of human affections, however slight they may be, cannot, while they last, make its way to God.
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything
Absolute | Belief | Eternal | Insight | Life | Life | Logic | Man | Nature | Reason | Thinking | Zen |
Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad, the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.
All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connection of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth.
Grace | Imagination | Receive | Soul | Work |
Terrified consciences, that are Magor-missabib, see nothing but matter of fear round about. As they have lived without the bounds of the law, they are afraid to fall under the stroke of his justice: fear wishes the destruction of that which it apprehends hurtful: it considers him as a God to whom vengeance belongs, as the Judge of all the earth. The less hopes such an one hath of his pardon, the more joy he would have to hear that his judge should he stripped of his life: he would entertain with delight any reasons that might support him in the conceit that there were no God: in his present state such a doctrine would be his security from an account: he would as much rejoice if there were no God to inflame an hell for him, as any guilty malefactor would if there were no judge to order a gibbet for him.
God | Grace | Man | Right | Scripture | Wants | Wisdom | God |
Stephane Mallarme, born Étienne Mallarmé
I should point out, creating one's own style, as much as is required to illustrate one of the aspects, the golden seam of language, involves beginning again at once, in a different manner, adopting the guise of a pupil when one risked becoming pedantic - thus by a shrugging of one's shoulders, disconcerting some with their genuflecting stance, and immortalizing oneself in multiple, impersonal, or even anonymous forms in response to the gesture of arms raised in stupefaction.