This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
At death, you forget all the limitations of the physical body, and realize how free you are... You exist apart from the mortal body... There is nothing to fear. When death comes, laugh at it. Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die. Our real self, the soul, is immortal. We may sleep for a little while in that change called death, but we can never be destroyed. We exist, and that existence is eternal... Nothing can terminate the eternal consciousness.
Body | Change | Consciousness | Death | Eternal | Existence | Experience | Fear | Lesson | Little | Mortal | Nothing | Self | Soul | Learn |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
He who least likes courting favor, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.
Appetite | Distinction | Neglect | Think |
Ah, snug lie those that slumber beneath conviction's roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, their windows weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever, and cold sleep all my kind, for I was born to shiver in the draft from an open mind. Born nakedly to shiver in the draft of an open mind.
Mind |
The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.
Enough | Greatness | Justice | Need | Perception | Plenty | Poverty | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Better | Distinction | Duty | Greatness | Man | Meanness | Opinion | People | Rule | Solitude | Will | World | Think |
Life itself is a bubble and skepticism, and a sleep within a sleep.
Life | Life | Skepticism |
Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.
Day |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
There is no distinction between Thy divinity, Thy unity, Thy eternity, and Thy existence; for it is all one mystery.
Distinction | Divinity | Eternity | Existence | Mystery | Unity |
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.
Man should not be joyous amongst the weeping, nor should he weep amongst the joyous. He should not be awake amongst the sleeping, nor should he sleep amongst those who are awake.
Man |
The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.
Determination | Distinction | Energy | Little | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Will |
An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.
Determination | Distinction | Little | Men |
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?
Calamity | Death | Delay | Dread | Dreams | Fortune | Law | Life | Life | Love | Man | Merit | Mind | Mortal | Office | Question | Respect | Time | Troubles | Will | Wrong | Respect | Calamity |
Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities owe possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.
Affectation | Appearance | Distinction | Envy | Folly | Infamy | Passion | Pride | Qualities | Superiority | Think | Vice |
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.
Distinction | Evil | Good | Indifference | Nature |