This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
Happy is the man who has that in his soul which acts upon the dejected as April airs upon violet roots. Gifts from the hand are silver and gold, but the heart gives that which neither silver nor gold can buy. To be full of goodness, full of cheerfulness, full of sympathy, full of helpful hope, causes a man to carry blessings of which he is himself as unconscious as a lamp is of its own shining. Such a one moves on human life as stars move on dark seas to bewildered mariners; as the sun wheels, bringing all the season with him from the south.
Blessings | Cheerfulness | Gold | Happy | Heart | Hope | Life | Life | Man | Soul | Sympathy |
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.
Blessings we enjoy daily; and for most of them, because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises; but let not us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made the sun and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers and showers and meat and content.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles at the drawn dagger and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; but thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, unhurt amidst the war of elements, the wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
By anticipation we suffer misery and enjoy happiness before they are in being. We can set the sun and stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandering into those retired parts of eternity when the heavens and earth shall be no more.
Anticipation | Earth | Eternity | Happiness |
The life of a mythology derives from the vitality of its symbols as metaphors delivering, not simply the idea, but a sense of actual participation in such a realization of transcendence, infinity, and abundance, as this of which the upanishadic authors tell. Indeed, the first and most essential service of a mythology is this one, of opening the mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being. And the second service, then, is cosmological: of representing the universe and whole spectacle of nature, both as known to the mind and as beheld by the eye, as an epiphany of such kind that when lightning flashes, or a setting sun ignites the sky, or a deer is seen standing alerted, the exclamation "Ah!" may be uttered as a recognition of divinity.
Abundance | Divinity | Epiphany | Heart | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Sense | Service | Universe | Wonder |
Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.
Action |
Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.
Rights |
The soul that flows out into God does not die; death is alien to what is submerged in life. The soul is alive, but not to itself. Stars are ever giving light, but they do not shine in the daytime; the sun shines in them, and they are hidden away in the sun’s rays. So it is with the soul; still alive, but now its life is bound up with God; or rather, it is God who lives in it.
Satchel Paige, fully Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige
Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.
The secret of meditation is to be conscious of each second of your existence and to keep the sun of awareness continually shining - in both the physical and psychological realms, in all circumstances, on each thing that arises.
Awareness | Circumstances | Existence | Meditation | Awareness |
It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honour peereth in the meanest habit.
Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"
When a man reproached Diogenes for going into unclean places he said, “The sun too penetrates into privies, but it is not polluted by them.”
Man |
Earle Birney, fully Earle Alfred Birney
The Sun never sets. It is we who rise think to shine.
Think |