This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
And yet, let the nature of these perceptions be what it will, and let them be produced as they will, if we look amongst them for the idea of extension, for instance, of a line, of an angle, and any other figure, we shall find it in that repository very clearly and distinctly.
Abstract | Circumstances | Mind | Perception | Power | Think |
Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.
Better | Heart | Mind | Writing | Instruction |
Mankind did not multiply words without necessity, especially in the beginning: for they were, at no small trouble to invent and to retain them.
Verbs originally expressed the state of things, only in an indeterminate manner. Such are the infinitives, to go, to act. The action accompanying them supplied the rest ; that is, the tenscs4 moods, numbers, and persons. In saying tree to fee, they signified by some gesture, whether they spoka of themselves or of a third person, of one or of many, of the past, present, or future, in fine, whether in a positive or in a conditional sense.
But how much better, in any case, to wonder than not to wonder, to dance with astonishment and go spinning in praise, than not to know enough to dance or praise at all; to be blessed with more imagination than you might know at the given moment what to do with than to be cursed with too little to give you — and other people — any trouble.
By setting the anguish out into the open and voicing it as a prayer, the psalm gives dignity to our suffering. It does not look on suffering as something slightly embarrassing that must be hushed up and locked in a closet (where it finally becomes a skeleton) because this sort of thing shouldnÂ’t happen to a real person of faith. And it doesnÂ’t treat it as a puzzle that must be explained, and therefore turn it over to theologians or philosophers to work out an answer. Suffering is set squarely, openly, passionately before God. It is acknowledged and expressed. It is described and lived.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The only way I can describe the extent of my anxiety is to say that I felt as if I we're pregnant with a rock.
Genius |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.
Mind |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.