This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"If you're serious about something, it has a fixed time. If you're earnest about getting something done and the phone rings, you ignore it. The spiritual side of your life is not a hobby nor a luxury --it is your purpose of existence. When you are learning Torah, or meditating or in prayer, nothing else exists. Your spiritual career should have at least equal priority to your worldly career." - Tzvi Freeman
"I love the jocund dance, The softly breathing song, Where innocent eyes do glance, And where lisps the maiden’s tongue. I love the laughing vale, I love the echoing hill, Where mirth does never fail, And the jolly swain laughs his fill. I love the pleasant cot, I love the innocent bow’r, Where white and brown is our lot, Or fruit in the mid-day hour. I love the oaken seat, Beneath the oaken tree, Where all the old villagers meet, And laugh our sports to see. I love our neighbours all, But, Kitty, I better love thee; And love them I ever shall; But thou art all to me." - William Blake
"The Holiness of Minute Particulars - And many conversèd on these things as they labour’d at the furrow, Saying: ‘It is better to prevent misery than to release from misery; It is better to prevent error than to forgive the criminal. Labour well the Minute Particulars: attend to the Little Ones; And those who are in misery cannot remain so long, If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth.… He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer; For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars, And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power: The Infinite alone resides in Definite and Determinate Identity. Establishment of Truth depends on destruction of Falsehood continually, On Circumcision, not on Virginity, O Reasoners of Albion!" - William Blake
"Hence jarring sectaries may learn their real interest to discern; that brother should not war with brother, and worry and devour each other." - William Cowper
"Then, shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how)." - William Cowper
"Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"To the geologic eye all the surface of the earth is a fluid form, and man moves upon it as insecurely as Peter walking on the waves to Christ." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"You see, all these laws that they are having so much trouble wondering if they are constitutional, they were all drawn up by lawyers. For almost two-thirds of the membership of the House and Senate are lawyers." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
"Probability in mathematics or in statistical mechanics means a statement about our degree of knowledge of the actual situation. In throwing dice we do not know the fine details of the motion of our hands which determine the fall of the dice and therefore we say that the probability for throwing a special number is just one in six. The probability wave of Bohr, Kramers, Slater, however, meant more than that; it meant a tendency for something. It was a quantitative version of the old concept of `potentia’ in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality." - Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
"Those who would practice the art of tolerance must guard well against an attitude of superiority, smugness, indifference, and coldness. These qualities are tolerance turned wrong side out!" - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it." - Wilhelm Reich
"Only too often do we thoughtlessly follow a fashion which favors mass produced commodities, and only slowly do we come to realize that these also have great disadvantages." - Wilhelm Röepke
"It is of course possible to count as "writing" any semiotic mark, that is, any visible or sensible mark which an individual makes and assigns a meaning to. Using the term "writing" in this extended sense trivializes its meaning. The critical and unique breakthrough into new worlds of knowledge was achieved within human consciousness not when simple semiotic marking was devised but when a coded system of visible marks was invented whereby a writer could determine the exact words that the reader would generate from the text. This is what we usually mean today by writing in its sharply focused sense." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"Practice keeping your life simple and uncomplicated." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"See the light in others, and treat them as if that is all you see." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which the food comes." - Wendell Berry
"The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still. I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars... I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there, but I did. I felt their completeness as whatever they had been in the world." - Wendell Berry
"Philistinism implies not only a collection of stock ideas but also the use of set phrases, clichés, banalities expressed in faded words. A true philistine has nothing but these trivial ideas of which he entirely consists." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"It is not sufficient that a few in society penetrate to the depths of living and offer fascinating accounts about the oneness of all beings. What is necessary in these critical times is that all sensitive and caring people make a personal discovery of the fact of oneness and allow compassion to flow in their lives. When compassion and realization of oneness becomes the dynamic of human relationship, then humankind will evolve." - Vimala Thakar
"The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"What can we say if once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been roused in us?" - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed. Indeed life is a have to defend and protect ourselves, and with a cheerful and brace spirit we must battle; we plan and calculate in order to make progress." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"What was that? What did that mean? Are things they could put forth his hand, so, and get bumpy, knife blade can cut? Fist to grab? There is no safety? No possibility to memorize ways of life? No guidance, no shelter, it was a miracle, jumping from the top of a peak in space? Could this be life, even for older people? Surprising, unexpected, unknown? For a moment had the impression that if both would be up here, now, on the lawn, and would require an explanation, why is life so short, why is so inexplicable, if and would formulate questions vehemently, as would be entitled to two human beings do better steel, to which nothing should be hidden, then beauty would unfold, would fill the vacuum, those vain were arabesques together in a form, if the two of them would scream loud enough Mrs. Ramsay would return. Mrs. Ramsay! shouted. Mrs. Ramsay! Tears rolled down her cheeks." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"It is the stillest words that bring on the storm. Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL
"The progress of man by the education of minds — there is no safety but in that." - Victor Hugo
"An egotist can never be humble that is why he is seldom blessed even by god." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"Such is my love for the Lord of the Universe; through perfect good destiny, I have been united with Him." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity" - Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
"Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day." - Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
"That’s the left wing of the CIA debating the right wing of the CIA." - Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
"I only knew two things about Seattle: one, it was a long way from racist, sexist, homophobic, hide-bound, purse-lipped, gun-toting, church-crazed, flag-saluting, bourbon-swilling, buzz-cut, save your Confederate money, boys! Richmond, Virginia; and two, there was reputed to be something not quite right about its weather." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"ALONSO: You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense. Would I had never married my daughter there! for, coming thence, my son is lost; and, in my rate, she too, who is so far from Italy remov'd I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish hath made his meal on thee? FRANCESCO: Sir, he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, and ride upon their backs; he trod the water, whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted the surge most swol'n that met him; his bold head 'bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd himself with his good arms in lusty stroke to the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, as stooping to relieve him; I not doubt he came alive to land. The Tempest, Act ii, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare
"The Saab seethed off into the night. Arthur watched it go, as stunned as a man might be who, having believed himself to be totally blind for five years, suddenly discovers that he had merely been wearing too large a hat." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"I never hear the rattling of dice that it does not sound to me like the funeral bell of the whole family." - Douglas William Jerrold
"Let a woman be correct in manner and upright in character in order to serve her husband. Let her live in purity and quietness of spirit, and attend to her own affairs. Let her love not gossip and silly laughter. Let her cleanse and purify and arrange in order the wine and the food for the offerings to the ancestors. When a woman observes such principles as these, then she may be said to continue ancestral worship." - Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
"Know the difference between merit and demerit, and deal out to each its reward and punishment. In these days, reward does not always follow merit, or punishment follow crime. You high officials who have charge of public affairs, make it your business to give clear rewards and punishments." - Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya
"Our senses serve to affirm, not to know." - Egyptian Proverbs
"You will not mind if I say that where there is unhappiness in a house and there is an impression of someone [i.e. a departed spirit] coming back, it is because you make for that spirit a Garden of Memory in which it can live and revive its sufferings. Unless you are, consciously or unconsciously, in a state of mind in which this impression can vivify itself, you will not be troubled. Haven't you discovered that these things only happen to you when you are in a bad emotional state, physically or mentally disturbed? Don't you realize that you yourself vivify this memory?" - Eileen Garrett
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being." - Albert Einstein
"Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of ones self- sovereignty." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. (Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw)" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make." - Emmet Fox
"Whatever you experience in your life is really but the out-picturing of your own thoughts and beliefs. Now, you can change these thoughts and beliefs, and then the outer picture must change too. The outer picture cannot change until you change your thought. Your real heartfelt conviction is what you out-picture or demonstrate, not your mere pious opinions or formal assents. Convictions cannot be adopted arbitrarily just because you want a healing. They are built up by the thoughts you think and the feelings you entertain day after day as you go through life. So, it is your habitual mental conduct that weaves the pattern of your destiny for you, and is not this just as it should be? So no one else can keep you out of your kingdom - or put you into it either. The story of your life is really the story of the relations between yourself and God." - Emmet Fox
"The present is the only thing with no end." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
"As you think, you vibrate. And it is your vibrational offering that equals your point of attraction. So what you are thinking and what is coming back to you is always a vibrational match." - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"Be happy in anticipation of what's coming." - Ester and Jerry Hicks