This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.
Paul Claudel, aka Paul L.C. Claudel
The order is the pleasure of reason, but the disorder is the delight of the imagination.
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
As to the impotence of repression — it is sufficiently demonstrated by the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics — to the State, that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent mass of obedient subjects of a central authority.
Coercion | Desire | Incoherent | Necessity | Nothing | Politics | Present | Revolution | Society | Society |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
Arms production is a serious disorder in the present world with regard to true human needs.
The Iliad is the private lives of people thrown into disorder by history.
People |
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, fully Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
Every truth we see is one to give to the world, not to keep to ourselves alone
Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
Good | Harm | Man | Order | Perfection | Punishment | Reason | Soul | Will |
Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
To say the truth, I go so far as to praise and congratulate them. Yea! would that I were one of those who contend and incur hatred for the truth’s sake: or rather, I can boast of being one of them. For better is a laudable war than a peace which severs a man from God: and therefore it is that the Spirit arms the gentle warrior, as one who is able to wage war in a good cause.
Let me describe briefly how a black hole might be created. Imagine a star with a mass 10 times that of the sun. During most of its lifetime of about a billion years the star will generate heat at its center by converting hydrogen into helium. The energy released will create sufficient pressure to support the star against its own gravity, giving rise to an object with a radius about five times the radius of the sun. The escape velocity from the surface of such a star would be about 1,000 kilometers per second. That is to say, an object fired vertically upward from the surface of the star with a velocity of less than 1,000 kilometers per second would be dragged back by the gravitational field of the star and would return to the surface, whereas an object with a velocity greater than that would escape to infinity.
Each exists for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe.
Time |
Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.
Nothing |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.
There is a growing belief that Johnson's American is no longer the historic America, that it is a bastard empire which relies on superior force to achieve its purposes, and is no longer providing an example of the wisdom and humanity of a free society.
In general, I weathered even the worst sermons pretty well. They had the great virtue of causing my mind to wander. Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons. Or I would look out the windows. In winter, when the windows were closed, the church seemed to admit the light strictly on its own terms, as if uneasy about the frank sunshine of this benighted world. In summer, when the sashes were raised, I watched with a great, eager pleasure the town and the fields beyond, the clouds, the trees, the movements of the air—but then the sermons would seem more improbable. I have always loved a window, especially an open one.
What is one man among so many men? What are so many men in such a world? Can one man think one thing and think it long? Can one man be one thing and be it long?
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
While the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.
Darkness | Day | Death | Ends | Life | Life | Panic | Progress | Suicide | Thought | Time | Afraid | Old | Thought |
Meditation - If I am aware of the nature of my reactions, and movement of my reactions, naturally that awareness will result in freedom from the reaction. I cannot stop the reaction, because the reactions have been rooted in the sub-conscious, in the unconscious. I cannot prevent, I cannot renounce, I cannot check them. But if I am aware, simultaneously of the objective challenge, the subjective reactions and the causes of those reactions, then it results in freedom. Then the momentum of reaction will not carry me over with it, but I will be ahead of the reactions; I will not be a victim of my reaction, but I will see them as I see the objective challenge. That for me is meditation. All-inclusive attention while moving in life. Meditation does not involve any mental activity at all.
Body | Chance | Depression | Health | Indulgence | Order | Orderliness | Quiet | Religion | Will |