This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
How, in so short a time, she had passed from intoxication to disgust we will only seek to explain by supposing that this mysterious composition which we call society, is nothing absolutely good or bad in itself, but has a spirit in it, volatile but potent, which either makes you drunk when you think it, as Orlando thought it, delightful, or gives you a headache when you think it, as Orlando thought it, repulsive. That the faculty of speech has much to do with it either way, we take leave to doubt. Often a dumb hour is the most ravishing of all; brilliant wit can be tedious beyond description. But to the poets we leave it, and so on with our story.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
They are very large in effect, these painters; very little self-conscious; they have smooth broad spaces in their minds where I am all prickles and promontories.
Earth |
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
The cursed hunger for gold.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Whatever it be, every fortune is to be overcome by bearing it.
Earth |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Man’s major social illusion is that he can build a society which is higher than his own psychological level.
Earth | Life | Life | Understanding |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Now, thought is both good and necessary for the mechanical process of life, like building a house or cooking dinner. But because your spiritual self is not mechanical it must be elevated by an entirely different power. That power is awareness.
Earth |
And whatever he did, he always fell back onto this paradox at the core of his thought. To remain in paradise and become a demon! To re-enter hell and become an angel!
He was one of those children so deserving of pity above all others, who have fathers and mothers and yet are orphans.
He was not willing for there to be any man on earth without a country.
Earth | Experience | Joy |
On the face of this old queen of French cathedrals, beside each wrinkle you always find a scar. Tempus edox, homo edacior, which I translate as: Time is blind, man stupid.
Earth |
The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.
What is done is but little by the side of what remains to be done. To destroy is the task: to build is the work. Progress demolishes with the left hand; it is with the right hand that it builds. The left hand of Progress is called Force; the right hand is called Mind.
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