This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The whole secret of remaining young in spite of years, and even of gray hairs, is to cherish enthusiasm in oneself, by poetry, by contemplation, by charity, - that is, in fewer words, the maintenance of harmony in the soul. When everything is in its right place within us, we ourselves are in its right place within us, we ourselves are in equilibrium with the whole work of God. Deep and grave enthusiasm for the eternal beauty and the eternal order, reason touched with emotion and a serene tenderness of heart - these surely are the foundations of wisdom.
Beauty | Enthusiasm | Eternal | Grave | Harmony | Heart | Reason | Right | Tenderness | Work | Beauty |
Dada Vaswani, born Jashan Pahalraj Vaswani
I must never forget that every thought I think, every word I utter, every action I perform, every feeling, every emotion that wakes up in me, is recorded in the memory of nature. I might be able to deceive those around me, I may even succeed in deceiving myself. But I cannot deceive nature.
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
It is our kindest and tenderest emotion which we screen from the world.
John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety
Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to another. And yet when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to him is beautiful, he has known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind, if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting.
Means |
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
Appearance | Day | Desire | Envy | Grief | Heart | Little | Lying | Men | Parents | Sorrow | World |
Juan Gris, full name José Victoriano González-Pérez
I prefer the emotion that corrects the rule.
Lawren Harris, fully Lawren Stewart Harris
The primary function of art is not to imitate or represent or interpret, but to create a living thing; it is the reduction of all life to a perfectly composed and dynamic miniature – a microcosm where there is perfect balance of emotion and intellect, stress and strain resolving itself, form rhythmically poised in three dimensions.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration.
M. C. Richards, fully Mary Caroline Richards
It is part of our pedagogy to teach the operations of thinking, feeling, and willing so that they may be made conscious. For if we do not know the difference between an emotion and a thought, we will know very little. We need to understand the components (of emotions) at work... in order to free their hold.
Need | Order | Teach | Will | Understand |
Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
Herein lies the likely reason for feelings. Just as negative feelings are a "here-be-dragons" sensory system that alarms you, telling you unmistakably that you are in a win-lose encounter, the feeling part of positive emotion is also sensory. Positive feeling is a neon "here-be-growth" marquee that tells you that a potential win-win encounter is at hand.
Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, inauthenticity, to depression and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die.
Character | Depression |
Those blinded by civilization have contact with their own tabbood mimetic traits only through certain gestures and forms of behavior they encounter in others, isolated, shameful residues in their rationalized environment. What repels them as alien is all too familiar. It lurks in the contagious gestures of an immediacy suppressed by civilization: gestures of touching, nestling, soothing, coaxing. What makes such impulses repellent today is their outmodedness. In seeking to win over the buyer with flattery, the debtor with threats, the creditor with supplication, they appear to translate long-reified human relationships back into those of personal power. Any emotion is finally embarrassing; mere excitement is preferable. All unmanipulated expression appears like the grimace which the manipulated expression…always has.
Behavior | Civilization | Excitement |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
Consciousness and emotion are there to correct your trajectory; when what you are doing is seamlessly perfect, you don’t need them.
Need |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
Learn to detach...Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you are able to leave it... Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.
Detachment | Experience | Fear | Grief | Love | Need | Pain | Afraid |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even ,you experience them fully and completely You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, "Alright I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.
Emotions | Experience | Grief | Love | Need | Pain | Afraid |
Whatever the source of emotion that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world....I want my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them without cutting his hands.
War |