This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed." - William Morris
"I too will go, remembering what I said to you, when any land, the first to which we came seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, and all seemed won to you: but still I think, perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain." - William Morris
"Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of defeat, and when it comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name" - William Morris
"Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung." - William Morris
"Of rich men it telleth, and strange is the story how they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory has been but a burden they scarce might abide." - William Morris
"Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?" - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Plenty of people despise money, but few know how to give it away." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Now I stand as one upon a rock, environed with a wilderness of sea, who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, expecting ever when some envious surge will in his brinish bowels swallow him." - William Shakespeare
"O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade justice to break her sword. One more, one more! Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, and love thee after. One more, and that's the last! So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep, but they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly; it strikes where it doth love. She wakes." - William Shakespeare
"O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offense have I this fortnight been a banished woman from my Harry's bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, and start so often when thou sit'st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks and given my treasures and my rights of thee to thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, and heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, cry 'courage! To the field!' and thou hast talked of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, of Palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain, and all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, and thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, that beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream, and in thy face strange motions have appeared, such as we see when men restrain their breath on some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, and I must know it, else he loves me not. Henry IV, Act ii, Scene 3" - William Shakespeare
"O sir, to wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters." - William Shakespeare
"O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide! How couldst thou drain the lifeblood of the child, to bid the father wipe his eyes withal, and yet be seen to bear a woman's face? Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible; thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless." - William Shakespeare
"O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear!" - William Shakespeare
"Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear I never more will break an oath with thee." - William Shakespeare
"Past and to come seems best, things present worst." - William Shakespeare
"May I recognize all the manifestations that appear to me in the bardo (intermediate state) as being my own projections; emanations of my own mind. When the bardo of the moment of death appears may I abandon attachments and mental fixations, and engage without distraction in the path which the instructions make clear. Mind projected into the sphere of uncreated space, separated from body, from flesh and blood, I will know that which is impermanence and illusion." - Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL
"When he has nothing to say, he lets words speak." - Elias Canetti
"One would expect writers and artists to understand one another better than anyone else and to be more appreciative of one another's works. That, sadly, is not always the case. Writers Rarely say anything positive About each Other." - Elif Safak
"The writer is to be selfish. And motherhood is based on the giving." - Elif Safak
"What I’m saying is, my friends, one ought to be able to let go. If a path does not please us, instead of insisting on going that specific way, of making our selfishness the guide, we ought to forsake. The books we cannot write, the films we cannot shoot, the projects we cannot develop, the jobs we cannot pursue and the people who no longer love us. Being able to let go, at times, is the most beautiful of all!" - Elif Safak
"Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot." - Elihu Root
"Remember, sir, my liege, the kings your ancestors, together with the natural bravery of your isle, which stands as Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in with rocks unscalable and roaring waters, with sands that will not bear your enemies' boats but suck them up to th' topmast." - William Shakespeare
"She that was ever fair, and never proud, had tongue at will, and yet was never loud... She that could think, and ne'er disclose her mind, see suitors following, and not look behind. She was a wight, if ever such wight were— to suckle fools and chronicle small beer." - William Shakespeare
"Since you know you cannot see yourself so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself that of yourself which yet you know not of." - William Shakespeare
"Because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one's own senses, and THIS makes the senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why, Barzini says, Italians will tolerate hideously incompetent generals, presidents, tyrants, professors, bureaucrats, journalists and captain of industry, but will never tolerate incompetent opera singers, conductors, ballerinas, courtesans, actors, film directors, cooks, tailors... In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this earth to do?" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Listen to me. Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"When you are walking down the road in Bali and your pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, Where are you going? The second question is, Where are you coming from? To a Westerner, this can seem like a rather invasive inquiry from a perfect stranger, but they're just trying to get an orientation on you, trying to insert you into the grid for the purposes of security and comfort. If you tell them that you don't know where you're going, or that you're just wandering about randomly, you might instigate a bit of distress in the heart of your new Balinese friend. It's far better to pick some kind of specific direction -- anywhere -- just so everybody feels better." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being." - Elizabeth Janeway, born Elizabeth Ames Hall
"Unlike we are, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies... Thou, bethink thee, art a guest for queens to social pageantries, with gages from a hundred brighter eyes than tears even can make mine... what hast though to do with looking from the lattice-lights at me, a poor, tired, wandering singer." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Woman's reproductive organs are far older than man's and far more highly evolved. Even in the lowest mammals, as well as in woman, the ovaries, uterus, vagina, etc., are similar, indicating that the female reproductive system was one of the first things perfected by nature. On the other hand, the male reproductive organs, the testicles and the penis, vary as much among species and through the course of evolution as does the shape of the foot — from hoof to paw. Apparently, then, the male penis evolved to suit the vagina, not the vagina to suit the penis." - Elizabeth Gould Davis
"Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it." - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"It is easy to convince a man who thinks as you do." - Ellen Glasgow, fully Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
"The public was astounded; rumors flew of the most horrible acts, the most monstrous deceptions, lies that were an affront to our history. The public, naturally, was taken in. No punishment could be too harsh. The people clamored for the traitor to be publicly stripped of his rank and demanded to see him writhing with remorse on his rock of infamy. Could these things be true, these unspeakable acts, these deeds so dangerous that they must be carefully hidden behind closed doors to keep Europe from going up in flames? No! They were nothing but the demented fabrications of Major du Paty de Clam, a cover-up of the most preposterous fantasies imaginable. To be convinced of this one need only read carefully the accusation as it was presented before the court martial. How flimsy it is! The fact that someone could have been convicted on this charge is the ultimate iniquity. I defy decent men to read it without a stir of indignation in their hearts and a cry of revulsion, at the thought of the undeserved punishment being meted out there on Devil's Island. He knew several languages: a crime! He carried no compromising papers: a crime! He would occasionally visit his country of origin: a crime! He was hard-working, and strove to be well informed: a crime! He did not become confused: a crime! He became confused: a crime! And how childish the language is, how groundless the accusation!" - Emile Zola
"Pardon my sanity in a world insane." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
"I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair - it pleased him rarely to see her gentle - and saying - 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman." - Emma Goldman
"The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven." - Emma Goldman
"The idealists and visionaries, foolish enough to throw caution to the winds and express their ardor and faith in some supreme deed, have advanced mankind and have enriched the world." - Emma Goldman
"Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage: Ye who enter here leave all hope behind." - Emma Goldman
"Death in Heidegger is an event of freedom, whereas for me the subject seems to reach the limit of the possible in suffering. It finds itself enchained, overwhelmed, and in some way passive. Death is in this sense the limit of idealism." - Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
"Someone may object that material things extend beyond the realm of our present perception. It belongs to their very essence to be more than what is intimated or revealed in a continuum of subjective aspects at the moment of perception. They are also there when we do not perceive them: they exist in themselves." - Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
"Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding. But for those on the spiritual path—for those who believe in God and the power of prayer—change is a fuller expression of life. When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things." - Emmet Fox
"A word to the wise is enough." - English Proverbs
"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and can coast down them. ... Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motorcar only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"Life had seemed so simple that morning when I had wakened and found the false springÂ…But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway