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
Kind old ladies assure us that cats are often the best judges of character. A cat will always go to a good man, they say.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Why, from the very windows, even in the dusk, you see a swelling run through the street, an aspiration, as with arms outstretched, eyes desiring, mouths agape. And then we peaceably subside. For if the exaltation lasted we should be blown like foam into the air. The stars would shine through us. We should go down the gale in salt drops- as sometimes happens. For the impetuous spirits will have none of this cradling. Never any swaying or aimlessly lolling for them. Never any making believe, or lying cozily, or genially supposing that one is much like another, fire warm, wine pleasant, extravagance a sin.
Experience | Good | Time | Words |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
The middlebrow is the man, or woman, of middlebred intelligence who ambles and saunters now on this side of the hedge, now on that, in pursuit of no single object, neither art itself nor life itself, but both mixed indistinguishably, and rather nastily, with money, fame, power, or prestige.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown?
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
I wrote these verses, but another claimed the merit of them.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Myself acquainted with misfortune, I learn to help the unfortunate.
Citizens, in the future there shall be neither darkness nor thunderbolts, neither ferocious ignorance nor blood for blood... In the future no man will slay his fellow, the earth will be radiant, the human race will love. It will come, citizens, that day when all shall be concord, harmony, light, joy, and life.
François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
Without taste genius is only a sublime kind of folly. That sure touch which the lyre gives back the right note and nothing more, is even a rarer gift than the creative faculty itself.
Ceremony | Character | Death | Impression | Nations | Reason | Respect | Sacred | Respect |
May that 'divine knowledgeable person'(almighty) inspire us! One, without whose inspiration one can never attain total knowledge.
Take hold of this (charm) that subjects to immortality (life), may thy life unto old age not be cut off. I bring to thee anew breath and life, not to mist and darkness, do.
The study of the Vedas is the highest type of learning since it leads to the conquest of Death. All other studies deal with the means of living or the surroundings which you have to live; they deal with earning and spending, deriving a little pleasure by this trick, escaping a little grief by that trick. The Vedas show the path to the Realm of Eternal Bliss, where there is no Birth or Death.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
Man | Meaning | Sound | Understanding |
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
Some men come into holy obedience through the gateway of profound mystical experience. It is an overwhelming experience to fall into the hands of the living God, to be invaded to the depths of one's being by His presence, to be, without warning, wholly uprooted from all earth-born securities and assurances, and to be blown by a tempest of unbelievable power which leaves one's old proud self utterly, utterly defenseless, until one cries, "All Thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" Then is the soul swept into a Loving Center of ineffable sweetness, where calm and unspeakable peace and ravishing joy steal over one.
Absolute | Children | Enough | Eternal | Father | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Men | Obedience | Power | Watchfulness | Will | God |