This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The heart which, like a staff, was one for mine to lean and rest upon, the strongest on the longest day with steadfast love, is caught away, and yet my days go on, go on. And cold before my summer's done, and deaf in Nature's general tune, and fallen too low for special fear, and here, with hope no longer here, while the tears drop, my days go on.
Soul |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Earth may embitter, not remove, the love divinely given; and e'en that mortal grief shall prove the immortality of love, and lead us nearer heaven.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought except for love's sake only. Do not say I love her for her smile —her look —her way of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought that falls in well with mine, and certes brought a sense of pleasant ease on such a day - For these things in themselves, Beloved, may be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought, may be unwrought so. Neither love me for thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,— a creature might forget to weep, who bore thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
When the dust has settled years later, we might ask ourselves, What was I thinking? and the answer is usually: You weren’t. Psychologists call that state of deluded madness narcissistic love. I call it my twenties.
Are you becoming more and more aware of the interconnection of all beings, creatures and elements? Do you hold as your own Jesus' words: 'And whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me'? Are you getting tired of the way our society celebrates the false ego's selfish and insatiable drive to acquire and use more and more? And does that make you want to be an agent of healing? A declaration of life's interdependence is a sign of spiritual progress.
Arrogance | Fear | Fighting | Health | Life | Life | Listening | Nature | Practice | Soul | Surrender | Uncertainty | Will |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The face, which, duly as the sun, rose up for me with life begun, to mark all bright hours of the day with hourly love, is dimmed away — and yet my days go on, go on.
You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him.
Body | Leisure | Little | Music | Recreation | Sacrifice | Soul | Will | Worth |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Yet how proud we are, in daring to look down upon ourselves!
Soul |
Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme.
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. And likewise, if you would know the reality of Nature, you must destroy the appearance, and the farther you go beyond the appearance, the nearer you will be to the essence.
Getting up in the middle of the night, I walked around my room with the certainty of being chosen and criminal, a double privilege natural to the sleepless, revolting or incomprehensible for the captives of daytime logic.
Existence | Forgiveness | Happy | Light | Soul | Will | Forgiveness |
Colours in vibration, peeling like silver bells and clanging like bronze bells, proclaiming happiness, passion and love, soul, blood and death.