This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
You will best realize the significance of color if we describe how it affects the occultist. For this it is necessary that a person should free himself completely from everything else and devote himself to the particular color, immerse himself in it. If the person devoting himself to the color which covers these physically dense walls were one who had made certain occult progress, it would come about that after a period of this complete devotion the walls would disappear from his clairvoyant vision; the consciousness that the walls shut off the outer world would vanish. Now, what appears first is not merely that he sees the neighboring houses outside, that the walls become like glass, but in the sphere which opens up there is a world of purely spiritual phenomena; spiritual facts and spiritual figures become visible. We need only reflect that behind everything around us physically there are spiritual beings and facts...The worlds which surround us spiritually are of many kinds, many different kinds of elementary beings are around us. These are not enclosed in boxes or in such a state that they live in various houses... But they cannot all be seen in the same way; according to the capacity of clairvoyant vision, there may be visible and invisible beings in the same space. What spiritual beings become visible in any particular instance depends on the color to which we devote ourselves. In a red room, other beings become visible than in a blue room, when one penetrates to them by means of color. We may now ask: what happens if one is not clairvoyant? That which the clairvoyant does consciously is done unconsciously by the etheric body of a person not clairvoyantly trained; it enters a certain relationship with the same beings.
Leadership means influencing the organization to face its problems and to live into its opportunities.
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Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty.
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The place was packed as full of smells as a bale is of cotton.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Who says words with my mouth? All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
All cats are grey at night. (All shapes, all colors are alike in the dark. The night obscures all distinguishing features)
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Sam Shoemaker, fully Samuel "Sam" Moor Shoemaker, III
The situation in which we find ourselves in this world seems to be a condition of estrangement from God, with little feeling of contact with Him, yet a curious nostalgic feeling that somewhere He exists and that our life would be much more complete if we were in relationship with Him. The deep, seemingly indestructible awareness of something like homesickness for God is the natural basis for believing in some kind of fall -- we seem to remember something better and to be possessed to recapture it. There appears to be a gap, a chasm, between God and us which must be crossed if we are to be in relationship with him. We know that our own wrongdoing can widen the chasm: we are not so sure what will close it. Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good: it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember, but cannot entirely forget.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
My burden is light, said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven.
Cause | Feelings | God | Happy | Knowledge | Looks | Love | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | God |
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
The pious mind distinguishes between what is written with reference to the deity and with reference to the flesh, and thus avoids sacrilege.
Abstinence | Body | Desire | Prodigality | Soul | Spirit | Teacher |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
They said to him, "And what will you do if the Romans unite with the Byzantines? For behold, yesterday there came legates of Rome and tomorrow on Sunday they will take communion with the patriarch; it will become evident to all that it was you who turned the Romans away. Doubtless with you removed, there will then be an easy union." And he said to them, "Those who are coming cannot in any way prejudice the see of Rome, even if they should take communion because they have not brought a letter to the patriarch. And I am not at all convinced that the Romans will unite with them unless they confess that our Lord and God by nature both wills and works our salvation according to each of the natures from which he is, in which he is, as well as which he is." And they said, "And if the Romans should come to terms with them at this time, what will you do?" He replied, "The Holy Spirit, according to the Apostle, condemns even angels who sanction anything against what has been preached"
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Works and deeds gain passionlessness for the soul . . . and give quietness from thoughts when we acquire silence . . . Otherwise success is not possible. For if a tree is watered every day, can its root wither? Does water ever get less in a vessel if more is added daily? But when a man gains silence, his soul readily discerns passions, and the inner man, roused to spiritual work, overcomes them and, from day to day, lifts the soul nearer to purity.
Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL
When you go to visit any of your relations or friends, do not go to their houses in order to eat and drink well, but go there in order to take part in friendly and sincere conversation with them, to refresh your soul from worldly vanities by friendly and loving interaction, to be mutually comforted by your common faith. For ‘I see not yours, but you,’ says the Apostle.
God | Looks | Spirit | God | Understand |
Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Those who oppose the novel most vociferously today are of the opinion that intermingling with a different culture will inevitably weaken and ruin their own. I am of the opposite opinion. The Satanic Verses celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelization and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world. It is the great possibility that mass migration gives the world… The Satanic Verses is for change-by-fusion, change-by-conjoining. It is a love song to our mongrel selves.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
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But thanks be to God, since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and to mind my business better and to spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.