This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water. Milk drinkers draw close to the mother. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, shamans, everyone hears the intelligent sound and moves with thirst to meet it." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"There's little comfort in the wise." - Rupert Brooke
"There's a total and complete silence in that beautiful view and the realization, of course, that you're going 25,000 miles an hour." - Russell Schweikart, fully Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart aka Schweikart
"Living life is not like crossing a meadow." - Russian Proverbs
"The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural." - Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
"Life is that Wisdom by which all things are made, both the things that have been and the things that are yet to be… We did for one instant attain to touch it… in a flash of the mind attained to touch the eternal Wisdom which abides over all." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"The affection, feelings and apprehensions of the perfect spirit, being Divine, are of another kind and of a very different order from those that are natural. It seems now to the soul that it is going forth from its very self with much affliction. At other times things seem strange and rare, though they are the same that it was accustomed to experience before. The soul is now becoming alien and remote from common sense and knowledge of things in order to be informed with the Divine." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"The night of sense should be called a kind of correction and restraint of the desire rather than purgation. A period of tranquility comes after the first night." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"It is said that the highest state of prayer is reached when the intellect goes beyond the flesh and the world, and while praying is utterly free from matter and form. He who maintains this state has truly attained unceasing prayer.”" - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"Give Him glory once for offenses pardoned; give it again for virtues conferred." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"A dog that licks a rasp drinks its own blood and does not know its own harm because of the sweetness of the blood; and a monk who stoops to drink vainglory, consumes his life and does not perceive his harm because of the fleeting sweetness." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"A man cannot receive spiritual knowledge unless he is converted and becomes like a little child. Only then does he experience that delight which belongs to the Kingdom of the Heavens. By 'Kingdom of the Heavens' the Scriptures mean spiritual divine vision." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"Now if we are willing to examine the Scriptures in this way, carefully and systematically, we shall be able to obtain our salvation. If we unceasingly are preoccupied with them, we shall learn both correctness of doctrine and an upright way of life." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"Why, you ask, do we see evil doers thriving and healthy and enjoying great prosperity? Let us weep for them, because they’re not having to suffer in this world is a guarantee of greater punishment in the next! To show this, St. Paul said, ‘But when we are judged, we are being chastised by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with this world. Afflictions here are a form of reproof, while this in the other world are a form of punishment for those who were evil in their lives.’" - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
"The best thing must be to flee from all to the All." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"What a great favor God does to those He places in the company of good people!" - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"The whole purpose of the Congregation is: 1) to have a genuine commitment to grow in holiness, patterning ourselves, as far as possible, on the virtues which the great Master Himself graciously taught us in what He said and did; 2) to preach the good news of salvation to poor people, especially in rural areas; 3) to help seminarians and priests to grow in knowledge and virtue, so that they can be effective in their ministry." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"We must be full reservoirs in order to let our water spill out without becoming empty, and we must possess the spirit with which we want them to be animated, for no one can give what he does not have." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"Miles away, down through an opening in the hills, he could catch glimpses of a road where motor-cars sometimes passed, and yet here, so removed from the arteries of the latest civilization, was a bat-haunted old homestead, where something unmistakably like witchcraft seemed to hold a very practical sway." - Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL
"I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom. … Actually Existing Islam … which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in." - Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
"Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health." - Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech
"Doubtless the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat." - Samuel Butler
"I had to get up every day with my mind set on improving something." - Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton
"I’d get down low, turn my plane up on its side, and fly right over a town. Once we had a spot picked out, we’d land, go find out who owned the property, and try to negotiate the deal right then. That’s another good reason I don’t like jets. You can’t get down low enough to really tell what’s going on, the way I could in my little planes." - Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton
"All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Impatience of study is the mental disease of the present generation." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"In the decline of life, shame and grief are of short duration." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Life, like every other blessing, derives its value from its use alone. Not for itself, but for a nobler end the eternal gave it; and that end is virtue." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Politeness is fictitious benevolence. It supplies the place of it among those who see each other only in public, or but little. The want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"The chief glory of every people arises from its authors." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is that inscribed on the dial at All Souls, Oxford, - periunt et imputantur, - the hours perish, and are laid to our charge; for time, like life, can never be recalled." - Samuel Smiles
"Make books your companions; let your bookshelves be your gardens; bask in their beauty, gather their fruit, pluck their roses, take their spices and myrrh" - Samuel Tilden, fully Samuel Jones Tilden
"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few… the goal of practice is to always keep your beginner’s mind…For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. If you discriminate too much you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. If we lose our original self-sufficient mind, we will lose all precepts. When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violated in your own precepts: not to tell lies, not to steal, not to kill, not to be immoral, and so forth. If you keep your original mind, the precepts will keep themselves. In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something’. All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
"In the beginner's mind there is no thought, I have attained something. All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
"In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense. The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
"The rocks are where they are- and this is their will. The rivers flow- and this is their will. The birds fly- this is their will. Human beings talk- this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars shine- each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
"Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify." - Sydney J. Harris
"The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician." - Sydney J. Harris
"It is unreasonable to expect science to produce a system of ethics—ethics are a kind of highway code for traffic among mankind—and the fact that in physics atoms which were yesterday assumed to be square are now assumed to be round is exploited with unjustified tendentiousness by all who are hungry for faith; so long as physics extends our dominion over nature, these changes ought to be a matter of complete indifference to you." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions, by accepting the universal neorosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"Freedom is not a gift of heaven, you have to fight for it every day," - Simon Wiesenthal
"More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic." - Simone Weil