This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Andrei Bitov, fully Andrei Georgiyevich Bitov
Life has neither material nor idealistic secrecy or mystery about it. Life is equal to itself only, hence perceiving its meaning is out of the question... The exaggeration of our mental abilities has given rise to what we perceive as “the problem” of discerning life’s purpose... If it is beyond our powers to disembowel love and beauty - we can only ravish them - it means that they are given to us not for cognition but for reflection. Similarly, the freedom of choice granted to man, a freedom denied the rest of the living species, is man’s task, a duty to exercise and fulfill, not merely an opportune option.
Beauty | Character | Choice | Duty | Exaggeration | Freedom | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Means | Mystery | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Reflection | Rest | Secrecy | Beauty |
R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth
We walk, and our religion is shown (even in the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.
Character | Disguise | Man | Means | Nothing | Religion | World |
A simple heart will love all that is most precious on earth, husband or wife, parent or child, brother or friend, without marring its singleness; external things will have no attraction save inasmuch as they lead souls to Him; all exaggeration or unreality, affection and falsehood must pass away from such a one, as the dews dry up before the sunshine. The single motive is to please God, and hence arises total indifference as to what others say and think, so that words and actions are perfectly simple and natural, as in his sight.
Character | Earth | Exaggeration | Falsehood | Friend | God | Heart | Husband | Indifference | Love | Wife | Will | Words | Parent |
Envy pierces more in the restriction of praises than in the exaggeration of its criticisms.
Character | Envy | Exaggeration |
Never speak by superlatives; for in so doing you will be likely to wound either truth or prudence. Exaggeration is neither thoughtful, wise, nor safe. It is a proof of the weakness of the understanding, or the want of discernment of him that utters it, so that even when he speaks the truth, he soon finds it is received with partial, or even utter disbelief.
Disbelief | Discernment | Exaggeration | Prudence | Prudence | Safe | Truth | Understanding | Weakness | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
There is perhaps no one of the natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.
André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea.
Art | Exaggeration | Work | Art |
No disguise can long conceal love where it really exists, nor feign it where it is not.
We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that at length we disguise ourselves to ourselves.
Disguise |
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everyone else.
Exaggeration | Love |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
If you understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.
Age | Disguise | People | Understand |
We can say without exaggeration that the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover, this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it, but only to be able to quit - a condition that a saner time would regard as infernal, a condemnation.
Ambition | Exaggeration | People | Present | Regard | Retirement | Time | Work | Ambition |