This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
People who think they can live mean penance others lie to ourselves, but those who think other people cannot live without him be wrong again.
There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
Habit |
If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection.
What makes lovers never tire of one another is that they talk always about themselves.
What causes us to like new acquaintances is not so much weariness of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being admired more by those who do not know so much about us.
O now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind farewell content.
O, these deliberate fools, when they do choose, they have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision.
Action |
Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki
It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.
Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya
The Ministers and officials of the state should make proper behavior their first principle, for if the superiors do not behave properly, the inferiors are disorderly; if inferiors behave improperly, offenses will naturally result. Therefore when lord and vassal behave with propriety, the distinctions of rank are not confused: when the people behave properly the Government will be in good order.
It is true that the Chinese are not so religious as the Hindus, or even as the Japanese; and they are certainly not so religious as the Christian missionaries desire them to be.
Value |
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
If wives suppress not contempt for husbands, then it follows that such wives rebuke and scold their husbands. If husbands stop not short of anger, then they are certain to beat their wives. The correct relationship between husband and wife is based upon harmony and intimacy, and conjugal love is grounded in proper union. Should actual blows be dealt, how could matrimonial relationship be preserved? Should sharp words be spoken, how could conjugal love exist? If love and proper relationship both be destroyed, then husband and wife are divided.
Action | Discussion | Disrespect | Habit | Heart | Husband | Knowing | Language | Lust | Space | Wife | Will | Following |
Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki
We are not told of things that happened to specific people exactly as they happened; but the beginning is when there are good things and bad things, things that happen in this life which one never tires of seeing and hearing about, things which one cannot bear not to tell of and must pass on for all generations. If the storyteller wishes to speak well, then he chooses the good things; and if he wishes to hold the reader’s attention he chooses bad things, extraordinarily bad things. Good things and bad things alike, they are things of this world and no other. Writers in other countries approach the matter differently. Old stories in our own are different from new. There are differences in the degree of seriousness. But to dismiss them as lies is itself to depart from the truth. Even in the writ which the Buddha drew from his noble heart are parables, devices for pointing obliquely at the truth. To the ignorant they may seem to operate at cross purposes. The Greater Vehicle is full of them, but the general burden is always the same. The difference between enlightenment and confusion is of about the same order as the difference between the good and the bad in a romance. If one takes the generous view, then nothing is empty and useless.
Care | Cause | Compassion | Despise | Fault | Good | Listening | Object | Opinion | People | Slander | Taste | Will | World | Slander | Fault |