This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Jefferies, fully John Richard Jefferies
Alone in the green-roofed cave, alone with the sunlight and the pure water, there was a sense of something more than these. The water was more to me than water, and the sun than sun. The gleaming rays on the water in my palm held me for a moment, the touch of the water gave me something from itself. A moment, and the gleam was gone, the water flowing away, but I had had them. Beside the physical water and physical light I had received from them their beauty; they had communicated to me this silent mystery. The pure and beautiful water, the pure, clear, and beautiful light, each had given me some
But if more energy must be used to obtain water as water becomes scarce, more water must be used to obtain energy as energy resources become scarce.
Energy |
Poverty of spirit should accompany us all our life long to let us see that we have no righteousness nor strength of our own for sanctification; that all the grace we have is out of ourselves, even for the performance of every holy duty; for though we have grace, yet we cannot bring that grace into act without new grace, even as there is a fitness in trees to bear fruit, but without the influence of heaven they cannot be fruitful. That which oftentimes makes us miscarry in the duties of our callings is this, we think we have strength and wisdom sufficient, and then what is begun in self-confidence is ended in shame. We set about duties in our own pride and strength of parts, and find no better success; therefore it is always a good sign that God will bless our endeavors, when out of a deep sense of our own weakness, we in prayers and supplications like our Lord also water our business with strong crying and tears
Better | Business | God | Good | Grace | Heaven | Influence | Life | Life | Lord | Pride | Righteousness | Self-confidence | Sense | Spirit | Strength | Will | Wisdom | Business | God | Think |
Robert Altman, fully Robert Bernard Altman
I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.
Imagination | Love |
Robert Byrne, fully Robert Leo Byrne
In case of a water landing, the flight attendant can be used as a flotation device.
He thought he kept the universe alone; For all the voice in answer he could wake Was but the mocking echo of his own From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake. Some morning from the boulder-broken beach He would cry out on life, that what it wants Is not its own love back in copy speech, But counter-love, original response. And nothing ever came of what he cried Unless it was the embodiment that crashed In the cliff's talus on the other side, And then in the far-distant water splashed, But after a time allowed for it to swim, Instead of proving human when it neared And someone else additional to him, As a great buck it powerfully appeared, Pushing the crumpled water up ahead, And landed pouring like a waterfall, And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread, And forced the underbrush--and that was all.
Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town. The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you Who only has at heart your getting lost, May seem as if it should have been a quarry— Great monolithic knees the former town Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered. And there’s a story in a book about it: Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest, The chisel work of an enormous Glacier That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole. You must not mind a certain coolness from him Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain. Nor need you mind the serial ordeal Of being watched from forty cellar holes As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins. As for the woods’ excitement over you That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves, Charge that to upstart inexperience. Where were they all not twenty years ago? They think too much of having shaded out A few old pecker-fretted apple trees. Make yourself up a cheering song of how Someone’s road home from work this once was, Who may be just ahead of you on foot Or creaking with a buggy load of grain. The height of the adventure is the height Of country where two village cultures faded Into each other. Both of them are lost. And if you’re lost enough to find yourself By now, pull in your ladder road behind you And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me. Then make yourself at home. The only field Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall. First there’s the children’s house of make-believe, Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad. Then for the house that is no more a house, But only a belilaced cellar hole, Now slowly closing like a dent in dough. This was no playhouse but a house in earnest. Your destination and your destiny’s A brook that was the water of the house, Cold as a spring as yet so near its source, Too lofty and original to rage. (We know the valley streams that when aroused Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.) I have kept hidden in the instep arch Of an old cedar at the waterside A broken drinking goblet like the Grail Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it, So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t. (I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.) Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.
Adventure | Enough | Excitement | Heart | Light | Little | Mind | Need | Story | Time | Work | Wrong | Old | Think |
There is always another country and always another place. There is always another name and another face. And the name and the face are you, and you The name and the face, and the stream you gaze into Will show the adoring face, show the lips that lift to you As you lean with the implacable thirst of self, As you lean to the image which is yourself, To set the lip to lip, fix eye on bulging eye, To drink not of the stream but of your deep identity, But water is water and it flows, Under the image on the water the water coils and goes And its own beginning and its end only the water knows. There are many countries and the rivers in them -Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Colorado, Pecos, Little Big Horn, And Roll, Missouri, roll. But there is only water in them. And in the new country and in the new, place The eyes of the new friend will reflect the new face And his mouth will speak to frame The syllables of the new name And the name is you and is the agitation of the air And is the wind and the wind runs and the wind is everywhere. The name and the face are you. And they are you. Are new. For they have been dipped in the healing flood. For they have been dipped in the redeeming blood. For they have been dipped in Time And Time is only beginnings Time is only and always beginnings And is the redemption of our crime And is our Saviour's priceless blood. For Time is always the new place, And no-place. For Time is always the new name and the new face, And no-name and no-face. For Time is motion For Time is innocence For Time is West.
Agitation | Beginning | Friend | Little | Redemption | Time | Will |
The Master Speed - No speed of wind or water rushing by but you have speed far greater. You can climb back up a stream of radiance to the sky, and back through history up the stream of time. And you were given this swiftness, not for haste nor chiefly that you may go where you will, but in the rush of everything to waste, that you may have the power of standing still-- off any still or moving thing you say. Two such as you with such a master speed From one another once you are agreed that life is only life forevermore together wing to wing and oar to oar.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who can declare Thy greatness? For Thou hast encompassed the sphere of fire with the sphere of the firmament, Wherein is the Moon, Which by the splendour of the Sun raceth up, panting and shining, And in nine and twenty days fulfilleth her revolving And then remounteth her bounded circuit. Of her secrets some lie unveiled and some are unsearchable, And her body is to the body of the earth As one part is to thirty-nine parts, And from month to month she stirreth up the world and its chances, And its good and evil happenings, According to the will of her Creator, "To make known to the sons of men His mighty deeds."
Earth |
Seek not for fresher founts afar, Just drop your bucket where you are; And while the ship right onward leaps, Uplift it from the exhaustless deeps. Parch not your life with dry despair; The stream of hope flow everywhere-- So under every sky and star, Just drop your bucket where you are.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
THE MESSIAH - Lord, tell me when Shall come to men Messiah blest, When shall Thy care His couch prepare To be my guest, To sleep on my golden bed, in my palace rest. Wake, dear gazelle, Shake off thy spell, Nor slumber still. Dawn like a flag Surmounts the crag Of Tabor’s hill, And its flame it unfurls o’er my Hermon, the hoar and chill. From the wild-ass brood To the grace renewed Of Thy dainty roe, O Lord, return, For behold we yearn Our love to show, And our soul with Thy soul at one as of yore to know. Thrice welcome he Who comes to me Of David’s line, My palace treasure Is at his pleasure With all that’s mine, My pomegranate, cinnamon, spice, and the jars of my old sweet wine.
Art | Day | Enemy | Heart | Hope | Knowledge | Land | Light | Looks | Passion | Sacrifice | Sin | Soul | Spirit | Tears | Vengeance | Will | Wisdom | Work | Art | Child | Friends |
Margaret Fuller, fully Sara Margaret Fuller, Marchese Ossoli
Thoughts which come at a call Are no better than if they came not at all Neither flower nor fruit, Yielding no root For plant, shrub, or tree. I prize thy gentle heart, Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, And thy good mind, Daily refined, By pure desire To fan the heaven-seeking fire.
Day | Destiny | Earth | Eternal | God | Hunger | Joy | Life | Life | Light | Love | Man | Nature | Need | Nothing | Prayer | Thought | Truth | Wealth | Wishes | God | Old | Think | Thought |
I can reveal to you that I wished to die - For with much weeping she left me Saying: "Sappho - what suffering is ours! For it is against my will that I leave you." In answer, I said: "Go, happily remembering me For you know what we shared and pursued - If not, I wish you to see again our [former joys]... The many braids of rose and violet you [wreathed] Around yourself at my side And the many garlands of flowers With which you adorned your soft neck: With royal oils from [fresh flowers] You anointed [ yourself ] And on soft beds fulfilled your longing [For me]
Awakening | Blame | Chance | Compassion | Earth | Enough | Fortune | Fun | Giving | Good | Immortality | Journey | Joy | Kindness | Learning | Man | Mind | Miracles | Need | Pity | Pleasure | Poverty | Pride | Self | Slander | Space | Suffering | Time | Vision | Wealth | Will | World | Slander | Happiness |
Sathya Sai Baba, fully Sri Sathya Sai Baba
And he is Omnipresent. There is only one Religion The Religion of love. There is only one caste. The caste of humanity. There is only one language. The language of the heart. There is only one law The law of Karma (duty). There is only one God One Goal, One Truth, One Religion, One Reason. There is only one Guru. He is God. And that Guru is without you.
Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
Behold the cold days have already passed And the season of winter’s rains is buried. The young turtle-doves are seen in our land; They call to one another from the tips of branches. Therefore, my companions, keep the covenant Of friendship make haste and do not defy me. Come to my garden and pluck The roses whose perfume is like pure myrrh. And by the blossoms and gathering of swallows Who sing of the good times, drink ye Wine in measures like the tears I shed over parting With friends and as red as the faces of blushing lovers.
John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
O happiness of blindness! now no beauty Inflames my lust; no other's goods my envy, Or misery my pity; no man's wealth Draws my respect; nor poverty my scorn, Yet still I see enough! man to himself Is a large prospect, raised above the level Of his low creeping thoughts; if then I have A world within myself, that world shall be My empire; there I'll reign, commanding freely, And willingly obey'd, secure from fear Of foreign forces, or domestic treasons.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
A lover asked his beloved, ‘Do you love yourself more than you love me?’ The beloved replied, ‘I have died to myself and I live for you. I've disappeared from myself and my attributes. I am present only for you. I have forgotten all my learnings, but from knowing you I have become a scholar. I have lost all my strength, but from your power I am able. If I love myself I love you. If I love you I love myself.’