This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Philosophers never stood in need of Homer or the Pharisees to be convinced that everything is done by immutable laws; that everything is settled; that everything is the necessary effect of some previous cause.
Earth | Nothing | Order | Religion | Sacrifice | Work | Youth | Youth |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.
Life | Life | Order | Revolution |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate efforts to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless.
Meditation - If I am aware of the nature of my reactions, and movement of my reactions, naturally that awareness will result in freedom from the reaction. I cannot stop the reaction, because the reactions have been rooted in the sub-conscious, in the unconscious. I cannot prevent, I cannot renounce, I cannot check them. But if I am aware, simultaneously of the objective challenge, the subjective reactions and the causes of those reactions, then it results in freedom. Then the momentum of reaction will not carry me over with it, but I will be ahead of the reactions; I will not be a victim of my reaction, but I will see them as I see the objective challenge. That for me is meditation. All-inclusive attention while moving in life. Meditation does not involve any mental activity at all.
Body | Chance | Depression | Health | Indulgence | Order | Orderliness | Quiet | Religion | Will |
I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
News | Television | War | Wisdom | Wonder |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I am always hoping to make a discovery here, to express the feelings of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their minglings and their oppositions, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich, yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment without being bowed down is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has only known prosperity.
Fighting | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Order | Plan | Reward | Spirit | Strength |
Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.
Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.
I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made.
Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.
Religion cannot be kept within the bounds of sermons and scriptures. It is a force in itself and it calls for the integration of lands and peoples in harmonious unity. The lands (of earth) wait for those who can discern their rhythms. The peculiar genius of each continent, the placid lakes, all call for relief from the constant burdens of exploitation.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Humor is the first gift to perish in a foreign language.
War |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even better.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
If we help an educated man's daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? - not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Let us turn over the pages, and I will add, for your amusement, a comment in the margin.
Incoherent | Life | Life | Mind | Order | Thought | Thought |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and fall and rise again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet. Boats and youth passing and distant trees, the falling fountains of the pendant trees. I see it all. I feel it all. I am inspired. My eyes fill with tears. Yet even as I feel this. I lash my frenzy higher and higher. It foams. It becomes artificial, insincere. Words and words and words, how they gallop - how they lash their long manes and tails, but for some fault in me I cannot give myself to their backs; I cannot fly with them, scattering women and string bags. There is some flaw with me - some fatal hesitancy, which, if I pass it over, turns to foam and falsity. Yet it is incredible that I should not be a great poet.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
The creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
War |