This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
May it please Thee, O Lord my God, To return to me in mercy, And to bring me back to Thee in perfect repentance. O dispose my heart and turn Thine ear to supplication, And open my heart to Thy law, And plant in my thoughts the fear of Thee, And decree for me good decrees, And annul the evil decrees against me, And lead me not into the power of temptation, Nor into the power of contempt, And from all evil chances deliver me, And hide me in Thy shadow until the havoc pass by, And be with my mouth in my meditation, And keep my ways from sin through my tongue, And remember me when Thou rememberest and favourest Thy people, And when Thou rebuildest Thy Temple, That I may behold the bliss of Thy chosen ones, And purify me to seek diligently Thy Sanctuary devastated and ruined, And to cherish its stones and its dust, And the clods of its desolation, And rebuild Thou its wastes!
Affliction | Eternal | Good | Mercy | Past | Pity | Rage | Rest | Reward | Trust | Wickedness | Will | Blessed |
Elie Wiesel, fully Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel
That day I encountered the first American soldiers in the Buchenwald concentration camp. I remember them well. Bewildered, disbelieving, they walked around the place, hell on earth, where our destiny had been played out. They looked at us, just liberated, and did not know what to do or say. Survivors snatched from the dark throes of death, we were empty of all hope— too weak, too emaciated to hug them or even speak to them. Like lost children, the American soldiers wept and wept with rage and sadness. And we received their tears as if they were heartrending offerings from a wounded and generous humanity.
Comfort | Day | Deeds | Little | Love | Music | Pity | Right | Smile | Teach | Tears | Will | World | Deeds |
I can reveal to you that I wished to die - For with much weeping she left me Saying: "Sappho - what suffering is ours! For it is against my will that I leave you." In answer, I said: "Go, happily remembering me For you know what we shared and pursued - If not, I wish you to see again our [former joys]... The many braids of rose and violet you [wreathed] Around yourself at my side And the many garlands of flowers With which you adorned your soft neck: With royal oils from [fresh flowers] You anointed [ yourself ] And on soft beds fulfilled your longing [For me]
Awakening | Blame | Chance | Compassion | Earth | Enough | Fortune | Fun | Giving | Good | Immortality | Journey | Joy | Kindness | Learning | Man | Mind | Miracles | Need | Pity | Pleasure | Poverty | Pride | Self | Slander | Space | Suffering | Time | Vision | Wealth | Will | World | Slander | Happiness |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Desire | Error | Evil | Heart | Law | Pity | Poverty | Shame | Sin | Will |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. “I would finish hoeing my garden”, he replied.
Desire | Fault | God | Love | Pity | Will | World | God | Fault |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Care | Consideration | Doubt | Pity |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Pleasure is in general, dangerous and pernicious to virtue. - To be able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that is harmless and pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.
Children | Cultivation | Pity |
Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL
One should meditate on the form of God concentrating the mind on all the features. The person of self-control should withdraw the organs from the sense-objects with the help of the mind, and with the intellect [the determinative faculty] as guide, direct the mind to the entire form. Then he should concentrate the mind --- distributed all over the form --- on one part and think of the smiling countenance alone and nothing else.
Eternal | Goals | Life | Life | Pity | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Theoretical |
The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also.
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
In the world of mind, as in that of matter, we always occupy a position. He who is continually changing his point of view will see more, and that too more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be.
Circumstances | Effort | Friend | Good | Imagination | Little | Pity | Retirement | Traitor | Will |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
Almost all human affairs are tedious. Everything is too long. Visits, dinners, concerts, plays, speeches, pleadings, essays, sermons, are too long. Pleasure and business labour equally under this defect, or, as I should rather say, this fatal superabundance.
Admiration | Pity |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.
Pity |
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
It is a question of cubic capacity, said he; a man with so large a brain must have something in it.
Doubt | Happy | Impression | Pity |
Even a small thing can be not small to the great; but to the small, even great things are not altogether perfect.
It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else.