This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The more intense a spiritual leader's appetite for power, the more he is concerned to limit it to others.
Mind |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails....Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain.
I am not even talking about the way the judges were hand-picked. Doesn't the overriding idea of discipline, which is the lifeblood of these soldiers, itself undercut their capacity for fairness? Discipline means obedience. When the Minister of War, the commander in chief, proclaims, in public and to the acclamation of the nation's representatives, the absolute authority of a previous verdict, how can you expect a court martial to rule against him?
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
A little Madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the King.
Immortality | Mind |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
The soul should always stand ajar, that if the heaven inquire, he will not be obliged to wait, or shy of troubling her. Depart, before the host has slid the bolt upon the door, to seek for the accomplished guest, -- her visitor no more.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, and Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life — that in me has rest, as I — undying Life — have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts: unutterably vain; worthless as withered weeds, or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day... The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.
Birth | Body | Earth | Enjoyment | Guarantee | Heart | Human nature | Individual | Liberty | Men | Mind | Nature | Observation | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Restraint | Soul | Study | Teach | Wickedness | Will | World |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel in those days. It is a pity she could not stay content.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?
I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love, and freedom in motherhood.
Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |
Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others. The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. An army and navy represent the people's toys.
Individual | Majority | Struggle |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
For that mist may break when the sun is high and this soul forget its sorrow and the rose ray of the closing day may promise a brighter ‘morrow.
Corruption | Enough | Experience | Grief | Hope | Mankind | Mind | Mortal | Trust | Truth | Youth | Youth | Think |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose - tolerably sober; not going to bed mad at six o'clock, and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.
Atheism... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.
Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |
The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
As it spoke I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bed-clothes: still it wailed, "Let me in!", and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels — its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found; measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound — o, dreadful is the check — intense the agony when the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see; when the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again, the soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain. Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; the more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless; and robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine if it but herald death, the vision is divine —
Change | Eternal | Little | Love | Mind | Pleasure | Time | Will |