This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The Lotus SÅ«tra refers to one seeking the lesser fruit and states, 'Does not go near.' None of the bhiká¹£us of this country seek the lesser fruit.
Anger | Discussion | Language | Light | Repentance |
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
On the third day after the birth of a girl the ancients observed three customs: first to place the baby below the bed; second to give her a potsherd [a piece of broken pottery] with which to play; and third to announce her birth to her ancestors by an offering. Now to lay the baby below the bed plainly indicated that she is lowly and weak, and should regard it as her primary duty to humble herself before others. To give her potsherds with which to play indubitably signified that she should practice labor and consider it her primary duty to be industrious. To announce her birth before her ancestors clearly meant that she ought to esteem as her primary duty the continuation of the observance of worship in the home.
Beauty | Defects | Duty | Excellence | Fame | Father | Glory | Husband | Praise | Reputation | Will | Excellence | Friendship | Beauty |
I slept peacefully that night, feeling exultant and determined. Little did I know that I was making the most common and the most painful mistake women have made all throughout the ages: to naively think that with their love they can change the man they love.
So may I, blind fortune leading me, miss that which one unworthier may attain, and die with grieving.
Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd, And is enough for both. All's Well That Ends Well (King of France at II, i)
Shame |
She hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.
Wealth |
People are inherently inclined to believe that happiness is a matter of luck if you is written will happen as the good weather. But happiness does not work like that. Happiness is the result of the efforts of man. You fight for it, strive for it, demanding it, and sometimes even go looking for him in the world. Must participate consistently in the manifestations of your own happiness. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you never have to get sloppy in maintaining it, you must make great efforts to swim against the tide of that happiness forever, to stay on the surface. If you do not, you'll spill their intrinsic satisfaction. It's easy to pray when you're in trouble, but to keep praying even when the crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul be firmly held down to its good performance.
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.
Freedom | Law | Life | Life | Past | Position | Power | Prosperity | Rights |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Imagination is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine. If he gets so he can imagine truly enough people will think that the things he relates all really happened and that he is just reporting.
Plenty |
Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted.
Conversation | Discretion | Giving | Good | Love | Man | Nothing | Sense |
There is something so gross in the carriage of some wives that they lose their husbandsÂ’ hearts for faults which, if a man has either good-nature or good-breeding, he knows not how to tell them of. I am afraid, indeed, the ladies are generally most faulty in this particular; who at their first giving into love find the way so smooth and pleasant that they fancy it is scarce possible to be tired in it. There is so much nicety and discretion required to keep love alive after marriage, and make conversation still new and agreeable after twenty or thirty years, that I know nothing which seems readily to promote it but an earnest endeavor to please on both sides, and superior good sense on the part of the man.
Change | Desire | Despair | Esteem | Mind | Friendship | Value |
The proper business of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a soul thus supported outdoes itself; whereas if it be unexpectedly deprived of these succors it droops and languishes.
Advice | Friend | Man | Friendship |
Kant... stated defensively that he had "found it necessary to deny knowledge... to make room for faith," but he had not made room for faith; he had made room for thought, and he had not "denied knowledge" but separated knowledge from thinking.
The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature ? translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive, and every work of art should be alive.
Forgive |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I invented that little rhyme about 'One Ring to rule them all', I remember, in the bath one day.