This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under Anarchism? Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can anyone speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities. Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine and true in man.
Atheism | Belief | Earth | Fighting | God | Individual | Influence | Man | Power | Rule | Servitude | Thought | God | Thought |
Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king.
Earth | Force | Gold | Life | Life | Little | Love | Magic | Man | Power | World |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. (Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw)
Distress | Earth | Ends | Harmony | Impatience | Music | Struggle | Truth |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
Duty | Earth | Eternity | Happy | Hell | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Peculiarity | Repose |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I am the only being whose doom no tongue would ask no eye would mourn I never caused a thought of gloom a smile of joy since I was born in secret pleasure — secret tears this changeful life has slipped away as friendless after eighteen years as lone as on my natal day.
Earth | Eternity | Happy | Hell | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Repose |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
A little while, a little while, the weary task is put away, and I can sing and I can smile, alike, while I have holiday. Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart-- what thought, what scene invites thee now what spot, or near or far apart, has rest for thee, my weary brow? There is a spot, 'mid barren hills, where winter howls, and driving rain; but, if the dreary tempest chills, there is a light that warms again. The house is old, the trees are bare, moonless above bends twilight's dome; but what on earth is half so dear-- so longed for--as the hearth of home? The mute bird sitting on the stone, the dank moss dripping from the wall, the thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown, I love them--how I love them all! Still, as I mused, the naked room, the alien firelight died away; and from the midst of cheerless gloom, I passed to bright, unclouded day. A little and a lone green lane that opened on a common wide; a distant, dreamy, dim blue chain of mountains circling every side. A heaven so clear, an earth so calm, so sweet, so soft, so hushed an air; and, deepening still the dream-like charm, wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere. THAT was the scene, I knew it well; I knew the turfy pathway's sweep, that, winding o'er each billowy swell, marked out the tracks of wandering sheep. Could I have lingered but an hour, it well had paid a week of toil; but Truth has banished Fancy's power: restraint and heavy task recoil. Even as I stood with raptured eye, absorbed in bliss so deep and dear, my hour of rest had fleeted by, and back came labor, bondage, care.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.
There are these alone; but, running through one another, they become men and the tribes of beasts. At one time they are all brought together into one order by Love; at another, they are carried each in different directions by the repulsion of Strife, till they grow once more into one and are wholly subdued. Thus in so far as they are wont to grow into one out of many, and again divided become more than one, so far they come into being and their life is not lasting; but insofar as they never cease changing continually, so far are they evermore, immovable in the circle.
For we may ask in return, what has any secret purpose to do with our role of judgment and action? “Secret things,” we are told, “belong unto the Lord our God; but things which are revealed, unto us and to our children.” The question taken from the hidden purposes of the divine mind, can have no force whatever, because it is an appeal to our ignorance. We know, and can know nothing about them. One thing, however, we do know. God must be always and everywhere consistent with himself; and whether we can understand it or not, it is certain that there can be no inconsistency between revealed and unrevealed truths; and if God has made an offer of eternal life through the atonement unto all men, and commanded all men to embrace it, there cannot be in any purpose of God concerning its nature, anything which will clash with, and so contradict this universal offer.
Circumstances | Earth | God | Light | Means | Mistake | Nature | Necessity | Principles | System | Waste | Will | God | Guilty |
The influence of one's parents is powerful and permanent.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
But I could tell thee of other things, Inglés, and do not doubt what thou simply cannot see nor cannot hear. Thou canst not hear what a dog hears. Nor canst thou smell what a dog smells. But already thou hast experienced a little of what can happen to man.
Earth |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
For luck you carried a horse chestnut and a rabbitÂ’s foot in your right pocket. The fur had been worn off the rabbitÂ’s foot long ago and the bones and the sinews were polished by the wear. The claws scratched in the lining of your pocket and you knew your luck was still there.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.