This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Who says words with my mouth? All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
All cats are grey at night. (All shapes, all colors are alike in the dark. The night obscures all distinguishing features)
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Sam Shoemaker, fully Samuel "Sam" Moor Shoemaker, III
The situation in which we find ourselves in this world seems to be a condition of estrangement from God, with little feeling of contact with Him, yet a curious nostalgic feeling that somewhere He exists and that our life would be much more complete if we were in relationship with Him. The deep, seemingly indestructible awareness of something like homesickness for God is the natural basis for believing in some kind of fall -- we seem to remember something better and to be possessed to recapture it. There appears to be a gap, a chasm, between God and us which must be crossed if we are to be in relationship with him. We know that our own wrongdoing can widen the chasm: we are not so sure what will close it. Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good: it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember, but cannot entirely forget.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
My burden is light, said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven.
Cause | Feelings | God | Happy | Knowledge | Looks | Love | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | God |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
They said to him, "And what will you do if the Romans unite with the Byzantines? For behold, yesterday there came legates of Rome and tomorrow on Sunday they will take communion with the patriarch; it will become evident to all that it was you who turned the Romans away. Doubtless with you removed, there will then be an easy union." And he said to them, "Those who are coming cannot in any way prejudice the see of Rome, even if they should take communion because they have not brought a letter to the patriarch. And I am not at all convinced that the Romans will unite with them unless they confess that our Lord and God by nature both wills and works our salvation according to each of the natures from which he is, in which he is, as well as which he is." And they said, "And if the Romans should come to terms with them at this time, what will you do?" He replied, "The Holy Spirit, according to the Apostle, condemns even angels who sanction anything against what has been preached"
Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL
When you go to visit any of your relations or friends, do not go to their houses in order to eat and drink well, but go there in order to take part in friendly and sincere conversation with them, to refresh your soul from worldly vanities by friendly and loving interaction, to be mutually comforted by your common faith. For ‘I see not yours, but you,’ says the Apostle.
God | Looks | Spirit | God | Understand |
Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Those who oppose the novel most vociferously today are of the opinion that intermingling with a different culture will inevitably weaken and ruin their own. I am of the opposite opinion. The Satanic Verses celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelization and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world. It is the great possibility that mass migration gives the world… The Satanic Verses is for change-by-fusion, change-by-conjoining. It is a love song to our mongrel selves.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
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But thanks be to God, since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and to mind my business better and to spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.
When I was a small boy I was always being told by others, especially grown-ups, to behave, to be good. It never occurred to me that I was always behaving in some manner. But I didn't have the awareness or skill to ask those grown-ups what they meant when they told me to behave and to be good. Now I realize that all they wanted was for me to conform to their idea of what was good and not to do what they called bad behavior, which they sometimes changed at will. Even today people are still telling me how I should behave, but now I ask what they mean and sometimes it drives them up a wall.
Consequences | Emotions | Looks | Means | People | Price | Risk | Will | Work |
We know Him who is the Supreme Lord of lords, the Supreme Deity of deities, the Ruler of rulers; who is higher than the imperishable prakriti and is the self-luminous, adorable Lord of the world.
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When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
My dear fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more.
Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL
And so—since the conclusion of your syllogism (viz., that a stone is in no respect a man) is certain—you seem to me earlier to have obscured by your clever explanations the conclusion of my syllogism (a syllogism which is in every respect similar to yours). Hence, I now understand why you said that I have correctly understood but have not paid careful attention. For I correctly understood what you meant when you spoke to me, but I did not pay careful attention to the point you were making, because I did not realize how [what you said] was misleading me.
Blessedness | Darkness | Looks | Lord | Soul |
Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL
God's love is revealed just as much in the most simple soul who does not resist His graces as in the most sublime.
Church | Enough | God | Good | Grace | Light | Looks | Love | Nature | Nothing | Soul | God |