This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It won't fill a fig seed. (Used to express the insignificance of someone's point in an argument.)
Wise |
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
But whatever the earthly history of this moment of charm, this vision of an absolutely holy life is, I am convinced, the invading, urging, inviting, persuading work of the Eternal One. It is curious that modern psychology cannot account wholly for flashes of insight of any kind, sacred or secular. It is as if a fountain of creative Mind were welling up, bubbling to expression within prepared spirits. There is an infinite fountain of lifting power, pressing within us, luring us by dazzling visions, and we can only say, The creative God comes into our souls. An increment of infinity is about us. Holy is imagination, the gateway of Reality into our hearts. The Hound of Heaven is on our track, the God of Love is wooing us to His Holy Life. Once having the vision, the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are. Obey now. Use what little obedience you are capable of, even if it be like a grain of mustard seed. Begin where you are. Live this present moment, this present hour as you now sit in your seats, in utter, utter submission and openness toward Him. Listen outwardly to these words, but within, behind the scenes, in the deeper levels of your lives where you are all alone with God the Loving Eternal One, keep up a silent prayer, "Open Thou my life. Guide my thoughts where I dare not let them go. But Thou darest. Thy will be done." Walk on the streets and chat with your friends. But every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience. I find this internal continuous prayer life absolutely essential. It can be carried on day and night, in the thick of business, in home and school. Such prayer of submission can be so simple. It is well to use a single sentence, repeated over and over and over again, such as this: "Be Thou my will. Be Thou my will," or "I open all before Thee. I open all before Thee," or "See earth through heaven, See earth through heaven." This hidden prayer life can pass, in time, beyond words and phrases into mere ejaculations, "My God, my God, my Holy One, my Love," or into the adoration of the Upanishad, "O Wonderful, O Wonderful, O Wonderful." Words may cease and one stands and walks and sits and lies in wordless attitudes of adoration and submission and rejoicing and exultation and glory.
Enough | Faith | God | Greed | Heart | Humility | Imperialism | Little | Means | Smile | War | Will | Wise | God |
Tibullus, fully Albius Tibullus NULL
Ah me! it is hard to feign the joys one does not feel, hard to feign mirth when one’s heart is sad.
Tobias Smollett, fully Tobias George Smollett
The capital is become an overgrown monster; which like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and support.
Wise |
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest, a motley fool! a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool who laid him down and basked him in the sun and railed on Lady Fortune in good terms, in good set terms, and yet a motley fool. As You Like It, Act ii, Scene 7
A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel! I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. The Merchant of Venice (Gratiano at IV, i)
And simple truth miscalled simplicity, and captive good attending captain ill.
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes to seek new friends and stranger companies.
But your discretions better can persuade than I am able to instruct or teach, and therefore, as we hither came in peace, so let us still continue peace and love.
Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha! What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft. King Lear, Act v, Scene 3
Wise |
No creature can be a child of God but because the goodness of God is in it; nor can it have any union or communion with the goodness of the Deity till its life is the Spirit of Love. This is the one only band of union betwixt God and the creature... Here the necessity is absolute; nothing will do instead of this will; all contrivances of holiness, all forms of religious piety, signify nothing without this will to all goodness. For as the will to all goodness is the whole nature of God, so it must be the whole nature of every service of religion that can be acceptable to him.
Now since our eternal state is as certainly ours, as our present state; since we are as certainly to live forever, as we now live at all; it is plain, that we cannot judge of the value of any particular time, as to us, but by comparing it to that eternal duration, for which we are created.
Blame | Care | Earnestness | God | Love | Man | Men | Mind | Nothing | Spirit | Wise | God |