This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman." - Washington Irving
"You are in a partnership with all other human beings, not a contest to be judged better than some and worse than others." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"Hockey is a unique sport in the sense that you need each and every guy helping each other and pulling in the same direction to be successful." - Wayne Gretsky, fully Wayne Douglas Gretzky, “The Great One”
"On a few words of what is real in the world I nourish myself. I defend myself against whatever remains." - Wallace Stevens
"The idols have seen lots of poverty, snakes and gold and lice, but not the truth." - Wallace Stevens
"There's this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It's the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple—these are our faithful timekeepers; and reason corrects the feverish beat." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Act On Your Understanding - Never argue with one's own understanding. The whisper of intelligence is always there, whatever you do. If you create a time lag between the whisper of intelligence and understanding in you and your action, then you are preventing the cerebral organ from growing into a new dimension. When you argue with intelligence, when you postpone acting according to understanding then there is confusion, the brain gets confused. The voice of understanding, the voice of intelligence has an insecurity about it. How do you know that it is the right thing? So we tend to ignore it. Instead we accept authority. We conform. But the brain cannot be orderly, competent, accurate and precise if you do not listen to it, if you have no respect. We are so busy with the outside world, and its compulsions, that the world that is inside us does not command that respect and reverence, that care and concern from us. So one has to be a disciple of one's own understanding, look upon that understanding as the master. Sometimes one may commit a mistake, it might be the whim of the ego and we might mistake the whim, the wish of the ego for the voice of silence and intelligence, but that we have to discover. Unless you commit mistakes, how do you learn to discriminate between the false and the true? In learning there is bound to be a little insecurity, a possibility of committing mistakes. Why should one be terribly afraid of committing mistakes? So instead of accepting the authority of habits and conditionings, while one is moving one watches, and when there is a suggestion, a whisper from within, from one's own intelligence, one does not neglect, ignore, or insult that. To eliminate the time lag between understanding and action is the way to grow into spontaneity." - Vimala Thakar
"The teacher of evil destroys the lore, he by his teaching destroys the design of life, he prevents the possession of Good Thought from being prized. These words of my spirit I wail unto you, O Mazda, and to the Right." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL
"O Trojans, do not trust the horse. Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
"From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us." - Victor Hugo
"He thought himself stronger than he was and believed he could play mouse with a lion." - Victor Hugo
"A scholar always treads on the path of righteousness and as result becomes successful." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"By attaining knowledge the mind becomes enlightened." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"May all our energies become one and may all the good thoughts come together and may we become the mightiest amongst the mighty." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"One who makes a resolution and then makes sincere efforts to realize his dreams, nothing stops him from realizing his goal." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"A weak man can never achieve success in his life." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"By Your Will, enticed by the illusion of emotional attachment, the people are asleep; they do not wake up." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"I speak 'sweetly' with the desire of becoming the very epitome of 'sweetness'." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"If there is difference of opinion between husband and wife then household chores will become impossible to accomplish. To avoid this the relationship between husband and wife should be cordial and loving." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"In peace and poise, they remain detached; in peace and poise, they laugh. In peace and poise, they remain silent; in peace and poise, they chant." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"May your mind be infused with 'one' thought (concentration of mind). May every action of yours be embellished by 'one' thought. May your resolution be 'one'. You, who are acting to the contrary, your disposition shall have opposite orientation." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Social classes, races, Muslims and Hindus; beasts, birds and the many varieties of beings and creatures; the entire world and the visible universe - all forms of existence shall pass away." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Stress upon the importance of virtuous living free from any kind of sinful tendencies." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"They desert you even when you are alive, O madman; what good can they do when someone is dead?" - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy." - Tryon Edwards
"There are two beings who assess character instantly by looking into the eyes,—dogs and children. If a dog not naturally possessed of the devil will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience; and if a little child, from any other reason than mere timidity, looks you in the face, and then draws back and will not come to your knee, go home and look deeper yet into your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Othello, Act i, Scene 3" - William Shakespeare
"But whether unripe years did want conceit, or he refused to take her figured proffer, the tender nibbler would not touch the bait, but smile and jest at every gentle offer. The Passionate Pilgrim" - William Shakespeare
"Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear in all my miseries; but thou hast forced me (out of thy honest truth) to play the woman. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 3" - William Shakespeare
"To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides." - William James
"Money we either lock up in chests, or waste it in needless and ridiculous expenses upon ourselves, whilst the poor and the distressed want it for necessary uses." - William Law
"A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon, out of respect for that "ancient institution," the old one." - Douglas William Jerrold
"The synagogues and Beth midrashs in Babylonia will in the time to come be planted in Eretz Israel." - Eleazar ha-Kappar, alternate spelling Eliezer ha-Kappar
"ROMEO: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? JULIET: What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? ROMEO: The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. JULIET: I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: and yet I would it were to give again. ROMEO: Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love? JULIET: But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have; my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. Scene ii" - William Shakespeare
"Rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach to digest his words, with better appetite." - William Shakespeare
"So will I turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all." - William Shakespeare
"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write more entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page." - Eudora Welty
"Wait and watch are the two words given to us in our suffering. The words are connected with the image of watchmen waiting through the night for the dawn. There is something you can do, or more exactly, there is someone you can be: be a watchman." - Eugene Peterson
"We must extend the boundaries of our lives beyond the dates enclosed by our birth and death and acquire an understanding of God’s way as something larger and more complete than the anecdotes in our private diaries. Otherwise, we will always be “mistaking a sore throat for a descent into hell.”" - Eugene Peterson
"The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet that would support life. The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals. Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order. That kind of thing is characteristic of nature." - J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane