This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The trained mind is torn by fear; the pure elevated mind is placid and unruffled, like that of a homeless Sage." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses— the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that someday the path may be established more directly?" - Vannevar Bush
"In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth." - Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
"The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific. Therefore the base classes, primarily the women, practice an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants, except in countries where they are obtainable at a very low cost. From archaic times down through all the length of the patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. Drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence. Infirmities induced by over-indulgence are among some peoples freely recognized as manly attributes. It has even happened that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from such an origin has passed into everyday speech as a synonym for noble or gentle. It is only at a relatively early stage of culture that the symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a superior status, and so tend to become virtues and command the deference of the community; but the reputability that attaches to certain expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably lesson the disapprobation visited upon the men of the wealthy or noble class for any excessive indulgence. The same invidious distinction adds force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on the part of women, minors, and inferiors. This invidious traditional distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples of today. Where the example set by the leisure class retains its imperative force in the regulation of the conventionalities, it is observable that the women still in great measure practice the same traditional continence with regard to stimulants." - Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
"The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness." - Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
"Appreciating sacredness begins very simply by taking an interest in all the details of your life." - Chögyam Trungpa, fully Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
"Dawn talks to day over dew-gleaming flowers, night flies away" - William Morris
"I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, where I would wander if I might from dewy dawn to dewy night. And have one with me wandering." - William Morris
"If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream." - William Morris
"Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung." - William Morris
"The Way of husband and wife is intimately connected with Yin and Yang [these are the two basis elements of the Universe: Yin, the soft yielding feminine element, and Yang the hard aggressive male element. Every substance contains both elements in varying proportions]. And relates the individual to gods and ancestors. Truly it is the great principle of Heaven and Earth, and the great basis of human relationships. Therefore the "Rites" [The Classic of Rites] honor union of man and woman; and in the "Book of Poetry" [The Classic of Odes] the "First Ode" manifests the principle of marriage. For these reasons the relationships cannot but be an important one." - Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
"The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God, but whether you are His now." - Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
"You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him." - Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
"Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
"How can we disarm greed and envy? Perhaps by being much less greedy and envious ourselves; perhaps by resisting the temptation of letting our luxuries become needs; and perhaps by even scrutinizing our needs to see if they cannot be simplified and reduced." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
"Our Lord gave us the image of a child, not because of the childÂ’s helplessness, but because of the childÂ’s willingness to be led, to be taught, to be blessed." - Eugene Peterson
"The real meditation is ... the meditation on one's identity. Ah, voila une chose! You try it. You try finding out why you're you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voila une chose!" - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound