This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy.
It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Plenty of people despise money, but few know how to give it away.
O momentary grace of mortal men, which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, ready, with every nod, to tumble down into the fatal bowels of the deep.
Who lives without any madness, it is not so wise as he thinks.
Accident | Better | Desire | Fear | Reconciliation |
Of all the men alive I never yet beheld that special face which I could fancy more than any other.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care, and frantic-mad with evermore unrest; my thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, at random from the truth vainly express'd; for I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
Present |
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell!
Dreams | Good | Little | Mind | Misfortune | Prayer | Time | Misfortune | Old |
O, sits high in all the people's hearts; and that which would appear offense in us, his countenance, like richest alchemy, will change to virtue and to worthiness.
Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue: his faults lie open to the laws; let them, not you, correct him.
We all originally came from the woods! it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint; and the moment that money gets into our pockets, it somehow or another breaks out in ornaments on our person, without always giving refinement to our manners.
Age | Experience | Knowledge | Memory |
May I recognize all the manifestations that appear to me in the bardo (intermediate state) as being my own projections; emanations of my own mind. When the bardo of the moment of death appears may I abandon attachments and mental fixations, and engage without distraction in the path which the instructions make clear. Mind projected into the sphere of uncreated space, separated from body, from flesh and blood, I will know that which is impermanence and illusion.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The conjunction of the two, like that of the lame and the blind, is for the perception of Nature (pradhana) by the Self (purusha) and for the release of the Self. From this conjunction proceeds evolution.
Knowledge | Principles | Study |
Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya
Punish the evil and reward the good. This was the excellent rule of antiquity. Therefore do not hide the good qualities of others or fail to correct what is wrong when you see it. Flatterers and deceivers are a sharp weapon for the overthrow of the state, and a sharp sword for the destruction of the people. Men of this kind are never loyal to their lord, or to the people. All this is a source of serious civil disturbances.
Accomplishment | Day | Enough | Work |
If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.
Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.
We have overdeveloped the individualism that arose in a pioneer country. We are destined to become more co-operative, more collectivistic, and to find in this direction still greater opportunity for the individual, not so much restricted and defeated by competition but enlarged and enhanced by the support of a common will. It may be that the problem of material goods--of the necessary but yet external goods of food, clothing, shelter, and money-is about to be solved through new discoveries and developments, with the energies of men left freer than they have ever been to cultivate on higher levels the sharable goods of life, such as love and wisdom. These values grow with use and multiply by being freely shared.
Business | Church | Defiance | God | Isolation | Knowledge | Organic | Sense | Society | Society | Business | God | Old |