This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Black Elk, formallly Heȟáka Sápa NULL
I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all things as they must live together, like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.
Cassiodorus, fully Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator NULL
Poverty is the mother of crime.
Each day, say ‘thank you’ for being alive. Each day, take responsibility for your physical performance. Each day, be careful of human nature [your own and others’]. Each day, behold the wonder of Mother nature.
Day | Human nature | Mother | Nature | Responsibility | Wonder |
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it...Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike - brothers of one father and one mother, with only the sky above us and one country around us, and one government for all.
Chance | Earth | Father | Government | Law | Man | Men | Mother | People | Rights | Spirit | Will | Government |
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chance | Earth | Law | Liberty | Man | Men | Mother | Peace | People | Rights | Spirit | Wants |
Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi
Can you imagine how painful and tough it would be, trying to be wise all the time? Thank God none of us try. Or trying to be good and pure all the time: Sir Lancelot or Mother Teresa? What a burden! I am sure Mother Teresa doesn’t try to be good. She just does what she has to do. That is the secret of great people, they just do what they have to do.
Who takes the child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
Gerald Brenan, fully Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan
A bad memory is the mother of invention.
God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness | God | Mother |
What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.
Mother |
What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way to the coffin.
Mother |
Jean Baptiste Lacordaire, fully Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
To the mother alone it has been given, that her soul during the nine months should touch the soul of the child, and impose upon it predispositions to truth, gentleness, goodness, the culture of which precious germs she should complete in the light of day, after having sown them in the mysterious mysteries of her maternity.
Culture | Day | Gentleness | Light | Mother | Soul | Truth |
A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father, but it can be known only as love.
Father | God | Illusion | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Mystery | Spirit |