This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e'er loved, or father found, a love that makes breath poor and speech unable.
Behavior | Cause | Children | Contempt | Counsel | Desire | Duty | Father | Fear | Friend | Good | Grace | Heaven | Honor | Love | Marriage | Mind | Obedience | Pity | Pleasure | Right | Sacred | Time | Wife | Will | Wise | Wit | Woman | Friendship | Counsel | Friends |
My friend Kate once went to a concert of Mongolian throat singers who were traveling through New York City on a rare world tour. Although she couldn't understand the words to their songs, she found the music almost unbearably sad. After the concert, Kate approached the lead Mongolian singer and asked, What are your songs about? He replied, Our songs are about the same things that everyone else's songs are about: lost love, and somebody stole your fastest horse.
Body | Energy | Friend | Memory | Order | Truth | Understanding | Writing |
There's a joke about a very funny Italian poor man who goes to church every day to pray before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint, please, please, please ... Give me the grace of winning the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks at him and says with a wearily: My son, please, please, please ... buy a ticket. '
There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The child's heart curseth deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath.
Memory |
For this is wisdom- to love and live to take what fate or the Gods may give, to ask no question, to make no prayer, to kiss the lips and caress the hair, speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, to have and to hold, and, in time--let go.
Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith
Alas! It is well written, "The road to eminence lies through the cheap and exceedingly uninviting eating-houses."
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
By then I knew that everything good and bad left an emptiness when it stopped. But if it was bad, the emptiness filled up by itself. If it was good you could only fill it by finding something better.
Grace |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.