This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
It is no more my business to marry Edgar Linton than to be in heaven and if the wicked man who is here and had not degraded Heathcliff, I would have never thought. It would degrade me myself now than to marry Heathcliff. Also does he ever know how I like, and this, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. From whatever our souls are made, his and mine are the same and the Linton is as different from ours as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.
The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution — particularly the Socialist idea — is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship is replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat— or by that of its advance guard,the Communist Party. Lenin takes the seat of the Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People's Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.
Absurd | Life | Life | Love | Man | Right | Rights | Will | Woman |
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.
The poor in spirit suffer from none of these embarrassments, either because they never had them, or because they have risen above them on the tide of spiritual understanding. They have got rid of the love of money and property, of fear of public opinion, and of the disapproval of relatives or friends. They are no longer overawed by human authority, however august. They are no longer cocksure in their own opinions. They have come to see that their most cherished beliefs may have been and probably were mistaken, and that all their ideas and views of life may be false and in need of recasting. They are ready to start again at the very beginning and learn life anew.
Abstract | Business | Candor | Courage | Ideals | Life | Life | Love | Man | Practice | Receive | Religion | Right | Sense | Soul | Strength | Theories | Thought | Time | Trust | Will | Woman | Business | Thought |
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive theme?
Love | Responsibility | Will | Afraid |
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem... It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.
What will you do with the lazy ones, who would not work?' No one is lazy. They grow hopeless from the misery of their present existence, and give up. Under our order of things, every men would do the work he liked, and would have as much as his neighbor, so could not be unhappy and discouraged.
There is a truly spiritual mode of communication from which nothing but good can come. It is this: Sit down quietly and remind yourself that the one God really is Omnipresent. Then reflect that your real self is in the Presence of God now, and that the real selves of others are also in the Presence of God. Do this for a few minutes every day, and sooner or later you will get a sense of communication.
The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy.
Brotherhood | Dignity | Equity | Justice | Liberty | Love | Sense | Society | Society |
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
Nothing responds to us, but this silence; the voice of this silence is understood and frightens like the silence of those infinite spaces Pascal speaks of.
Love | Need | Object | Originality |
There is no need to be unhappy. There is no need to be sad. There is no need to be disappointed, or oppressed, or aggrieved. There is no need for illness or failure or discouragement. There is no necessity for anything but success, good health, prosperity, and an abounding interest and joy in life.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the man was lost.
Love |