This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Morrie Schwartz, fully Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz
Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!" Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?" The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?" The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean."
Peace originates with the flow of things --- its heart is like the movement of the wind and waves. The Way is like the veins that circulate blood through our bodies, following the natural flow of the life force. If you are separated in the slightest from that divine essence, you are far off the path.
It seems strange to think that my violin was once a tree, but I do not know what else could have caught the music that lies within it, waiting for the touch. It must be centuries old, and through all those years it was the listening and the learning, weaving in with its growth the forest melodies to sing to generations yet unborn. Wind and wave and song of bird, crash of thunder, drip of rain, and mating-call-all these are in the fibre of my violin. And the thousand notes of sea and storm, the music of the waterfall and stream-what wonder that it is so nearly the human voice! There must have been a love story in that forest, for it sings love, love, and only love, though I do not remember of hearing it until I knew you. Perhaps you have taught it a new melody-stranger things have happened-and it has learned your lesson best.
Growth | Lesson | Listening | Love | Music | Story | Waiting | Wonder | Think |
Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL
The fire which burned the forest Became the companion of the wind. But just as the wind extinguished the fire, the weak man loses his friends.
Man |
The great humanity is the deck-passenger on the ship third class on the train on foot on the causeway the great humanity. The great humanity goes to work at eight marries at twenty dies at forty the great humanity. Bread is enough for all except the great humanity rice the same sugar the same cloth the same books the same are enough for all except the great humanity. The great humanity has no shade on his soil no lamp on his road no glass on his window but the great humanity has hope you can't live without hope.
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
For our intellectual spirit has the power of fire in itself. For no other purpose is it sent by God to the earth than that it glow and grow into a flame. When it is excited by admiration, then it grows, just as if the wind entering into a fire excited its potential to actuality. If we apprehend the works of God, we marvel at eternal wisdom.
Earth | Eternal | God | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | God |
The little engine labors and grows, performs more and more involved operations, becomes sensitive to ever subtler influences and now there manifests itself in the fully developed being — Man — a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives. Inspired to this task he searches, discovers and invents, designs and constructs, and covers with monuments of beauty, grandeur and awe, the star of his birth. He descends into the bowels of the globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its immense imprisoned energies for his use. He invades the dark depths of the ocean and the azure regions of the sky. He peers in the innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays bare to his gaze worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts to his service the fierce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave. Such is his power and might that the heavens reverberate and the whole earth trembles by the mere sound of his voice.
Desire | Earth | Little | Man | Power | Service | Sound | Time | Work |
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
Poverty is very terrible, and sometimes kills the very soul within us; but it is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams.
Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.
Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.
Democracy | Government | Lord | Mankind | Will | Government | Trouble |
Panchatantra or The Panchatantra NULL
By associating with good and evil persons a man acquires the virtues and vices which they possess, even as the wind blowing over different places takes along good and bad odors.
Sorrow turns the stars into mourners, and every wind of heaven into a dirge.
Heaven |
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
Faith in providence is faith altogether. It is the courage to say yes to one’s life and life in general, in spite of the driving forces of fate, in spite of the catastrophes of existence and the breakdown of meaning.
Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again… Loving means to achieve communion with each other and discover the divine spark in him… Loneliness, when accepted, becomes a gift that will lead us to find a purpose in life… Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.
I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange… I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings… I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
It is impossible to see the face in the turbulent waters… At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss… At some point of our life, we will lose control of everything surrounds us and we will be controlled by the fate. That is the world's biggest lie… It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and, when the wind turns against us, always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds, or to blame someone else for our mistakes… It isn't the desire to abide by the law that makes everyone behave as society requires, but the fear of punishment. Each one of us carries a gallows inside us.
Blame | Control | Desire | Fear | Human nature | Law | Nature | Society | Will | Society |
The energy of hatred won't get you anywhere; but the energy of forgiveness, which reveals itself through love, will transform your life in a positive way… The warrior of light knows the importance of intuition. In the midst of battle, he does not have time to think of the enemy's blows, and so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. In times of peace, he deciphers the signs that God sends him. People say, He's mad. Or, He lives in a fantasy world. Or even, How can he possibly believe in such illogical things? But the warrior knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars.
Energy | God | Instinct | Intuition | Life | Life | Light | Listening | People | Talking | Time | Will | God | Think |
Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array.