This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even-the French air clears up the brain and does good-a world of good.
Action | Baseness | Circumstances | Existence | Good | Laziness | Longing | Nothing |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Yet it is true that there was an absent mindedness about her which sometimes made her clumsy; she was apt to think of poetry when she should have been thinking of taffeta; her walk was a little too much of a stride for a woman, perhaps, and her gestures, being abrupt, might endanger a cup of tea on occasion.
Critic | Feelings | Important | Life | Life | Worship | Value |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
The eyes of others our prisons, their thoughts our cages.
Experience | Failure | Life | Life | Success | Woman | Failure |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
The proper stuff of fiction does not exist everything is the proper stuff of fiction every feeling every thought every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon no perception comes amiss. And if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst she would undoubtedly bid us break her and bully her as well as honor and love her for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.
Human race | Question | Race |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
You can have a life of stimulation or you can have a life of inspiration.
Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while? Do this and eventually you will do great things.
People |
His brain was in one of those violent, yet frighteningly calm, states where reverie is so profound it swallows up reality. We no longer see the objects before us, but we see, as if outside of ourselves, the forms we have in our minds.
In short, between men and women you want.Equality. Equality! You can't mean it. Man and woman are two different creatures. I said equality. I didn't say identity.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic the self-transcendence of human existence. It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
Achievement | Dignity | Happy | Inconsistency | Man | People | Present | Sense | Society | Usefulness | Society | Old | Value |
Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum
This is a request from a lady (I sincerely hope). She is an elderly lady. Ah she's an old lady... you might as well face it.
Circumstances | Control | Play |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp who’s suffering and death, bore witness to the fact the last inner freedom can’t be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom — which cannot be taken away — that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
Cause | Dedication | Success | Surrender | Happiness |
May there be unison in the speech and action of humans. Only by this shall, unity emerge and serve each others’ purpose. The nation shall emerge stronger and mightier because of this.