This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue that, his apparent open guilt omitted-- I mean, his conversation with Shore's wife-- He lived from all attainder of suspects. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (King Richard at III, v)
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.
Sound |
Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question What 'tis you go about: to climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first: anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England Can advise me like you: be to yourself As you would to your friend.
Sound |
As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop)
Contentment | Distress | Focus | Friend | Global | Search | Sorrow | Suffering | Unhappiness | World | Trouble |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Dreams of doing good for good-for-nothing people.
This was not my moment to be seeking romance and (as day follows night) to further complicate my already knotty life. This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.
All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, the matchless tinting on the royal rose whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked. Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows, these hold a deeper pathos than our woes, since they leave nothing better to expect.
Day | Fate | Love | Play | Sorrow | Yielding | Fate | Friendship |
Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason.
The millions of women who have had abortions do not regard them as a victory. For most they were failures — whether of contraception or relationships — accompanied by mixed feelings of regret and relief.
And that wretched creature without hands or feet, who had to be put to bed and fed like a child, that pitiable remnant of a man, whose almost vanished life was nothing more than one scream of pain, cried out in furious indignation: 'What a fool one must be to go and kill oneself!' - 'Joy of Life
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, the news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, the bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, That must have been the sun!
'Tis better to plumb the depths of unity than forever scratch the surface of variety.
Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy - love which creates life?
Sorrow |