This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
Wisdom |
The Divine Mind communicates with the human mind through the imagination. A prayer, therefore, should be offered in the form of a mental image. Man must visualize the thing he desires, he must use his imaginative powers to form his petition in terms clearly outlined in his own mind. The profound concentration of attention and thought which this form of prayer requires fills also the heart with deep earnestness and devotion. Man must pray whole-heartedly as well as wholemindedly; he must believe in his heart that his well-being depends completely upon his prayer.
Attention | Devotion | Earnestness | Heart | Imagination | Man | Mind | Prayer | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence
Love is a thing to be learned. It is a difficult, complex maintenance of individual integrity throughout the incalculable processes of inter-human polarity.
Individual | Integrity | Love | Wisdom |
And in the end, through the long ages of our quest for light, it will be found that truth is still mightier than the sword. For out of the welter of human carnage and human sorrow and human weal the indestructible thing that will always live is a sound idea.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a distinct conception of what poets of strong ages call inspiration? If not, I will describe it. If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely medium of overwhelming forces. The concept of revelation , in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed - I have never had any choice... Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity... The involuntary nature of image, of metaphor is the most remarkable thing of all; one no longer has any idea what is image, what metaphor, everything presents itself as the readiest, the truest, the simplest means of expression.
Choice | Divinity | Freedom | Inspiration | Means | Nature | Necessity | Power | Revelation | Sense | Superstition | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Thought |
We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us - how we take it, what we do with it - and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty - that is the test of living.
Just as education without humanity is the most dangerous thing in the world, so education in love, human understanding and cooperation is the greatest hope of the world.
Cooperation | Education | Hope | Humanity | Love | Understanding | Wisdom | World |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The greatest thing in the world, is for a man to know how to be [oneself] his own [self-sufficient].
William (Morley Punshon) McFee
The artist isn't particularly keen on getting a thing done, as you call it. He gets his pleasure out of doing it, playing with it, fooling with it, if you like. The mere completion of it is an incident.
When a man is sure that all he wants is happiness, then most grievously he deceives himself. All men desire happiness, but they need something far different, compared to which happiness is trivial, and in the lack of which happiness turns to bitterness in the mouth. There are many names for that which men need - "the one thing needful" - but the simplest is "wholeness."
Bitterness | Desire | Man | Men | Need | Wants | Wholeness | Wisdom | Happiness |
Owen Meredith, pseudonym for Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, may hope to achieve it before life be done; but he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows... a harvest of barren regrets.