This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moderation in people who are contented comes from that calm that good fortune lends to their spirit.
Misers mistake gold for their good; whereas it is only the means of obtaining it.
O! let my looks be then the eloquence and dumb presagers of my speaking breast, who plead for love, and look for recompense, more than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, [fool'd by] these rebel powers that thee array, why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Gold |
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy. A curse shall light upon the limbs of men, domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy.
Gold |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
Gold |
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
By your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.
Gold |
From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. I begin to say the book’s no good, far inferior to my earlier ones, until I’ve wrung torture out of every page, every sentence, every word, and the very commas begin to look excruciatingly ugly. Then, when it’s finished, what a relief! Not the blissful delight of the gentleman who goes into ecstasies over his own production, but the resentful relief of a porter dropping a burden that’s nearly broken his back . . . Then it starts all over again, and it’ll go on starting all over again till it grinds the life out of me, and I shall end my days furious with myself for lacking talent, for not leaving behind a more finished work, a bigger pile of books, and lie on my death-bed filled with awful doubts about the task I’ve done, wondering whether it was as it ought to have been, whether I ought not to have done this or that, expressing my last dying breath the wish that I might do it all over again!
'Tis better to plumb the depths of unity than forever scratch the surface of variety.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect.
Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king.
Earth | Force | Gold | Life | Life | Little | Love | Magic | Man | Power | World |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
But there's this one difference: one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost, rendered worst than unavailing.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Keep right on lying to me. That's what I want you to do.
Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
One cannot be sure that there is nothing live for but if he is ready to die in the process.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
Supposing I was to tell you that it's just Beauty that's calling me, the beauty of the far off and unknown, the mystery and spell of the East which lures me in the books I've read, the need of the freedom of great wide spaces, the joy of wandering on and on — in quest of the secret which is hidden over there, beyond the horizon?