This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is not easy to describe in words the precise impression which great and sublime objects make upon us when we behold them; but every one has a conception of it. It produces a sort of internal elevation and expansion; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree of wonder and astonishment which it cannot well express. The emotion is certainly delightful, but it is altogether of the serious kind; a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity, commonly attends it when at its height, very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects.
If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the...present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.
Better | Day | Death | Little | Mind | Mystery | Need | Reason | Size | Soul | Will | Think |
You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset.
Reason |
And you all know security is mortals' chiefest enemy.
But whate'er I am, nor I nor any man that but man is, with nothing shall be pleased 'til he be eased with being nothing. Richard II, Act v, Scene 5
But, O thou tyrant, Do not repent these things, for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir. Therefore betake thee To nothing but despair. The Winter's Tale (Paulina at III, ii)
Chain me with roaring bears; or shut me nightly in a charnel-house, o'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones, with reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls; or bid me go into a new-made grave, and hide me with a dead man in his shroud; things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble; and I will do it without Fear or Doubt, to live an unstain'd Wife of my sweet Love. Romeo and Juliet, Act iv, Scene 1
But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows.
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady; O, it is my love! O that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek! Romeo and Juliet, Act ii, Scene 2
Blind is his love and best befits the dark. Romeo and Juliet, Act ii, Scene 1
It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
Absolute | Action | Feelings | Impression | Judgment | Man | Reason | Sacred | Sense | Understanding | Intellect |