This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Everyone is alone on the heart of the earth pierced by a ray of sunshine: and now evening, and Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world, pierced by a ray of sunlight, and Suddenly it's evening." - Salvatore Quasimodo
"Lo, I return with my spirit in torment May God have mercy upon you, my brother! A day ago I buried you But even now my complaint is bitter. Greetings I bring you! Do you not hear When I call to you with all my might? Answer me: Do you not recognize The response of my crying lament? Are your bones starting to wither And your teeth loosening in the jaw? Has your moistness fled in the night Even as mine is running in my tears? O first born of my father, I have left you As security in the hand of my Creator Whose assurance I trust That you will go in peace." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
"She said: “Be happy that God has helped you reach The age of fifty in this world,” not knowing That to me there is no difference between my life’s Past and that of Noah about whom I heard. For me there is only the hour in which I am present in this world: It stays for a moment and then like a cloud moves on." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
"Methinks that life is more than creed, Is more than dust or craving lust. Are hopes but dreams that fail in need, That fly away like mist and dust? " - Samuel Ullman
"The feeling of pity alone is enough to make Man choose the good and reject the bad." - Samuel David Luzzatto, aka by acronym of SHaDaL or SHeDaL
"Treading beneath their feet all visible things, As steps that upwards to their Father's throne Lead gradual... Lovely was the death Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power, He on the thought-benighted Skeptic beamed Manifest Godhead." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"This is the spot where I will lie When life has had enough of me, These are the grasses that will blow Above me like a living sea. These gay old lilies will not shrink To draw their life from death of mine, And I will give my body's fire To make blue flowers on this vine. "O Soul," I said, "have you no tears? Was not the body dear to you?" I heard my soul say carelessly, "The myrtle flowers will grow more blue. " - Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger
"That day I encountered the first American soldiers in the Buchenwald concentration camp. I remember them well. Bewildered, disbelieving, they walked around the place, hell on earth, where our destiny had been played out. They looked at us, just liberated, and did not know what to do or say. Survivors snatched from the dark throes of death, we were empty of all hope— too weak, too emaciated to hug them or even speak to them. Like lost children, the American soldiers wept and wept with rage and sadness. And we received their tears as if they were heartrending offerings from a wounded and generous humanity." - Elie Wiesel, fully Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel
"Even if only one free individual is left, he is proof that the dictator is powerless against freedom. But a free man is never alone; the dictator is alone. The free man is the one who, even in prison, gives to the other prisoners their thirst for, their memory of, freedom." - Elie Wiesel, fully Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel
"I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"See, those things go their way that others may succeed them, and that a whole may exist comprised of all its parts, though a lowly whole indeed. But I, says the Word of God, shall I depart to any place? Fix your dwelling there, my soul, lay up there for safe-keeping whatever you have thence received, if only because you are weary of deceits." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"The obedience which we render to a superior is paid to God, Who says, ‘He that hears you hears Me;’ so that whatever he who holds the place of God commands, supposing it is not evidently contrary to God's law, is to be received by us as if it came from God Himself; for it is the same thing to know His Will, either from His Own, from an Angel's, or from a man's mouth." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"The true measure of loving God is to love Him without measure." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"Awesome is the man who conceals the greatness of his labor by self-reproach; at such a man the angels marvel." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"What is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean, those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"To desire the same things and to reject the same things, constitutes true friendship." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL
"Let others sing of knights and paladins in aged accents and untimely words, paint shadows, in imaginary lines." - Samuel Daniel
"The thing you don't get looking at brochures and stats is what the school is really like," - Samuel Richardson
"The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted - all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
"The unrest of this weary world is its unvoiced cry after God." - Theodore T. Munger
"When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent." - Thomas Carlyle
"With how great labour or with how great paine men winne good, to the world leave it shall; unto the pit goeth naught but the careyne. [carcass]" - Thomas Hood
"Truth advances, and error recedes step by step only." - Thomas Jefferson
"And then the sly arch-lover that he was, he said the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the beloved; for the god was in the one but not in the other - perhaps the tenderest, most mocking thought that ever was thought, and source of all the guile and secret bliss the lover knows." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
"We understand much of what is involved in leadership -- vision, strategy, cooperation, integrity, trust, intuition, goal-setting, motivation, mobilization, productivity, and renewal. Yet paradoxically, however much we admire, appreciate, and recognize it, precise definitions remain elusive. Yet we do know that leadership is all about making things (good and bad) happen that might not otherwise happen and preventing things from happening that ordinarily would happen. It is the process of getting people to work together to achieve common goals and aspirations. Leadership is a process that helps people transform intentions into positive action, visions into reality. Leadership involves the infusion of vision, direction, and purpose into an enterprise and entails mobilizing both people and resources to undertake and achieve shared ends." - Thomas Cronin, fully Thomas Edward Cronin
"Though, if you ask her name, she says Elise, Being plain Elizabeth, e'en let it pass, And own that, if her aspirates take their ease, She ever makes a point, in washing glass, Handling the engine, turning taps for tots, And countering change, and scorning what men say, Of posing as a dove among the pots, Nor often gives her dignity away. Her head's a work of art, and, if her eyes Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist; Cheaply the Mode she shadows; and she tries From penny novels to amend her taste; And, having mopped the zinc for certain years, And faced the gas, she fades and disappears." - William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley
"Reeds of Innocence - Piing down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: 'Pipe a song about a Lamb!' So I piped with merry cheer. 'Piper, pipe that song again;' So I piped: he wept to hear. 'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer!' So I sung the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. 'Piper, sit thee down and write In a book that all may read.' So he vanish'd from my sight; And I pluck'd a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear. " - William Blake
"My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish’d air, By love are driv’n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave; His face is fair as heav’n When springing buds unfold; O why to him was ’t giv’n Whose heart is wintry cold? His breast is love’s all-worshipp’d tomb, Where all love’s pilgrims come. Bring me an axe and spade, Bring me a winding-sheet; When I my grave have made Let winds and tempests beat: Then down I’ll lie as cold as clay. True love doth pass away!" - William Blake
"Songs of Innocence (Introduction) - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped; he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer:’ So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ‘Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.’ So he vanish’d from my sight, And I pluck’d a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear." - William Blake
"To be or not to be Of great capacity, Like Sir Isaac Newton, Or Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death— I’d rather be Sutton! 2 For he did build a house For agèd men and youth, With walls of brick and stone; He furnish’d it within With whatever he could win, And all his own. He drew out of the Stocks His money in a box, And sent his servant To Green the Bricklayer, And to the Carpenter; He was so fervent. The chimneys were threescore, The windows many more; And, for convenience, He sinks and gutters made, And all the way he pav’d To hinder pestilence. Was not this a good man— Whose life was but a span, Whose name was Sutton— As Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death, Or Sir Isaac Newton?" - William Blake
"I Fear'd the fury of my wind Would blight all blossoms fair and true; And my sun it shin’d and shin’d, And my wind it never blew. But a blossom fair or true Was not found on any tree; For all blossoms grew and grew Fruitless, false, tho’ fair to see." - William Blake
"His whole life is an epigram smart, smooth and neatly penn’d, Plaited quite neat to catch applause, with a hang-noose at the end. " - William Blake
"My Eternal Man set in repose, The Female from his darkness rose; And she found me beneath a Tree, Mandrake, and in her Veil hid me. Serpent Reasonings us entice Of good and evil, virtue and vice, Doubt self-jealous, Watery folly; Struggling thro’ Earth’s melancholy; Naked in Air, in shame and fear; Blind in Fire, with shield and spear; Two-horn’d Reasoning, cloven fiction, In doubt, which is self-contradiction, A dark Hermaphrodite we stood— Rational truth, root of evil and good. Round me flew the Flaming Sword; Round her snowy Whirlwinds roar’d, Freezing her Veil, the Mundane Shell. I rent the Veil where the Dead dwell: When weary Man enters his Cave, He meets his Saviour in the grave. Some find a Female Garment there, And some a Male, woven with care; Lest the Sexual Garments sweet Should grow a devouring Winding-sheet. dies! Alas! the Living and Dead! One is slain! and One is fled! Vain-glory hatcht and nurst, By double Spectres, self-accurst. My Son! my Son! thou treatest me But as I have instructed thee. the shadows of the Moon, Climbing thro’ Night’s highest noon; Time’s Ocean falling, drown’d; In Agèd Ignorance profound, Holy and cold, I clipp’d the wings Of all sublunary things, And in depths of my dungeons Closed the Father and the Sons. But when once I did descry The Immortal Man that cannot die, Thro’ evening shades I haste away To close the labours of my day. The Door of Death I open found, And the Worm weaving in the ground: Thou’rt my Mother, from the womb; Wife, Sister, Daughter, to the tomb; Weaving to dreams the Sexual strife, And weeping over the Web of Life." - William Blake
"TERRIFIÈD at Non-Existence— For such they deem’d the death of the body—Los his vegetable hands Outstretch’d; his right hand, branching out in fibrous strength, Seiz’d the Sun; his left hand, like dark roots, cover’d the Moon, And tore them down, cracking the heavens across from immense to immense. Then fell the fires of Eternity, with loud and shrill Sound of loud Trumpet, thundering along from heaven to heaven, A mighty sound articulate: ‘Awake! ye Dead, and come To Judgement from the four winds! awake, and come away!’ Folding like scrolls of the enormous volume of Heaven and Earth, With thunderous noise and dreadful shakings, rocking to and fro, The Heavens are shaken, and the Earth removèd from its place; The foundations of the eternal hills discover’d. The thrones of Kings are shaken, they have lost their robes and crowns; The Poor smite their oppressors, they awake up to the harvest; 1 The naked warriors rush together down to the seashore, Trembling before the multitudes of slaves now set at liberty: They are become like wintry flocks, like forests stripp’d of leaves. The Oppressèd pursue like the wind; there is no room for escape.… The Books of Urizen unroll with dreadful noise! The folding Serpent Of Orc began to consume in fierce raving fire; his fierce flames Issu’d on all sides, gathering strength in animating volumes, Roaring abroad on all the winds, raging intense, reddening Into resistless pillars of fire, rolling round and round, gathering Strength from the earths consum’d, and heavens, and all hidden abysses, Where’er the Eagle has explor’d, or Lion or Tiger trod, Or where the comets of the night, or stars of day Have shot their arrows or long-beamèd spears in wrath and fury. And all the while the Trumpet sounds. From the clotted gore, and from the hollow den Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire, Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity. Then, like the doves from pillars of smoke, the trembling families Of women and children throughout every nation under heaven Cling round the men in bands of twenties and of fifties, pale As snow that falls round a leafless tree upon the green. Their oppressors are fall’n; they have stricken them; they awake to life. Yet, pale, the Just man stands erect, and looking up to Heav’n. Trembling and strucken by the universal stroke, the trees unroot; The rocks groan horrible and run about; the mountains and Their rivers cry with a dismal cry; the cattle gather together, Lowing they kneel before the heavens; the wild beasts of the forests Tremble. The Lion, shuddering, asks the Leopard: ‘Feelest thou The dread I feel, unknown before? My voice refuses to roar, And in weak moans I speak to thee. This night, Before the morning’s dawn, the Eagle call’d the Vulture, The Raven call’d the Hawk. I heard them from my forests, Saying: “Let us go up far, for soon I smell upon the wind A terror coming from the South.” The Eagle and Hawk fled away At dawn, and ere the sun arose, the Raven and Vulture follow’d. Let us flee also to the North.’ They fled. The Sons of Men Saw them depart in dismal droves. The trumpets sounded loud, And all the Sons of Eternity descended into Beulah." - William Blake
"A Tale, Founded On A Fact, Which Happened In January, 1779 - Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream, There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme. In subterraneous caves his life he led, Black as the mine, in which he wrought for bread. When on a day, emerging from the deep, A Sabbath-day, (such Sabbaths thousands keep!) The wages of his weekly toil he bore To buy a cock -- whose blood might win him more; As if the noblest of the feathered kind Were but for battle and for death designed; As if the consecrated hours were meant For sport, to minds on cruelty intent. It changed, (such chances Providence obey,) He met a fellow-labourer on the way, Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed, But now the savage temper was reclaimed. Persuasion on his lips had taken place; For all plead well who plead the cause of grace. His iron-heart with Scripture he assailed, Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed. His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew, Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew. He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around, To find a worse than he; but none he found. He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel. Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal. Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies! He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize. That holy day was washed with many a tear, Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear. The next his swarthy brethren of the mine Learned by his altered speech, the change divine, Laughed when they should have wept, and swore the day Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they. 'No,' said the penitent: 'such words shall share This breath no more; devoted now to prayer. Oh! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees,) That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these, Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, Ere yet this heart relapses into steel; Now take me to that heaven I once defied, Thy presence, thy embrace!' -- He spoke, and died! " - William Cowper
"And throughout all eternity I forgive you, you forgive me." - William Blake
"Never seek to tell thy love love that never told can be; for the gentle wind does move silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart; trembling, cold, in ghastly fears ah, she doth depart. Soon as she was gone from me a traveler came by silently, invisibly- he took her with a sigh." - William Blake
"The true method of knowledge is experiment." - William Blake
"My sin and judgment are alike peculiar. I am a castaway, deserted and condemned." - William Cowper
"When his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador: If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits." - William Cowper
"All women have a claim on us." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
"A cat has a reputation to protect. If it had a halo, it would be worn cocked to one side." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"I am in no sense of the word a great artist, not even a great animator; I have always had men working for me whose skills were greater than my own. I am an idea man." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
"A million people—manners free and superb— open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men; the free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves! The beautiful city! the city of hurried and sparkling waters! The city of spires and masts! The city nested in bays! my city! The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them! The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!" - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, whispering I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, for I could not die till I once look'd on you, for I fear'd I might afterward lose you. Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, return in peace to the ocean my love, I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, as for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, every day at sundown for your dear sake my love." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"Children are what the mothers are; no fondest father's fondest care can so fashion the infant's heart, or so shape the life." - Walter Savage Landor
"Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound into hot Summer's lusty arms expires; and where go forth at morn, at eve, at night, soft airs, that want the lute to play with them, and softer sighs, that know not what they want; under a wall, beneath an orange-tree whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones of sights in Fiesole right up above, while I was gazing a few paces off at what they seemed to show me with their nods, their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots, a gentle maid came down the garden-steps and gathered the pure treasure in her lap. I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth to drive the ox away, or mule, or goat, (Such I believed it must be); for sweet scents are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts, and nurse and pillow the dull memory that would let drop without them her best stores. They bring me tales of youth and tones of love, and 'tis and ever was my wish and way to let all flowers live freely, and all die, whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart, among their kindred in their native place. I never pluck the rose; the violet's head hath shaken with my breath upon its bank and not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup of the pure lily hath between my hands felt safe, unsoil'd, or lost one grain of gold. I saw the light that made the glossy leaves more glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit; I saw the foot, that, altho half-erect from its grey slipper, could not lift her up to what she wanted: I held down a branch and gather'd her some blossoms, since their hour was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies of harder wing were working their way thro and scattering them in fragments under foot. So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved, others, ere broken off, fell into shells, for such appear the petals when detacht, unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow, and like snow not seen thro, by eye or sun: yet every one her gown received from me was fairer than the first . . I thought not so, but so she praised them to reward my care. I said: you find the largest. This indeed, cried she, is large and sweet. She held one forth,whether for me to look at or to take she knew not, nor did I; but taking it would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubts. I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch to fall, and yet unfallen. She drew back the boon she tendered, and then, finding not the ribbon at her waist to fix it in, dropt it, as loth to drop it, on the rest." - Walter Savage Landor