This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The chaff from winnowing will blind a man’s eyes so that he cannot tell the points of the compass. Mosquitoes will keep a man awake all night with their biting. And just in the same way this talk of charity and duty to one’s neighbor drives me nearly crazy. Sir! strive to keep the world to its own simplicity. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so let virtue establish itself. Wherefore such undue energy, as though searching for a fugitive with a big drum?
Charity | Duty | Energy | Man | Simplicity | Virtue | Virtue | Will | World |
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
There is no favorable wind without direction.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
When in a room only lit by a candle and the wind blows, you can either enjoy the breeze or loath the darkness.
Darkness |
When our learning exceeds our deeds we are like trees whose branches are many but whose roots are few: the wind comes and uproots them... But when our deeds exceed our learning we are like trees whose branches are few but whose roots are many, so that even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against them, they would be unable to move them.
Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy Bussy-Rabutin
Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows over it.
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
Sum up at night what thou hast done by day, and in the morning what thou hast to do; dress and undress thy soul; mark the decay or growth of it. If with thy watch that too be down, then wind up both. Since thou shalt be most surely judged, make thine accounts agree.
Let me but live from year to year, with forward face and unreluctant soul; not hurrying to, nor turning from, the goal; not mourning for the things that disappear in the dim past, nor holding back in fear from what the future veils; but with a whole and happy heart, that pays its toll to Youth and Age, and travels with cheer. So let the way wind up the hill or down o’er rough and smooth, the journey will be joy: still seeking what I sought when but a boy, new friendship, high adventure, and a crown, my heart will keep the courage of the quest, and hope the road’s last turn will be the best.
Adventure | Age | Courage | Fear | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Journey | Joy | Mourning | Past | Soul | Will | Youth | Youth |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
These motions everywhere in nature must surely be the circulations of God. The flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the roving wind – whence else their infinite health and freedom? I can see nothing so proper and holy as unrelaxed play and frolic in this bower God has built for us.
Men in their generations are like the leaves of the trees. The wind blows and one year's leaves are scattered on the ground; but the trees burst into bud and put on fresh ones when the spring comes round.
Men |