This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but alas! are not so.
He that is endeavoring to subdue, and root out of his mind, all those passions of pride, envy and ambition, which religion opposes, is doing more to make himself happy, even in this life than he that is contriving means to indulge them.
You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them -- especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it.
Evil | God | Good | Love | Nature | Nothing | Reason | Revenge | Sin | Temper | Vengeance | Work | God |
William Melmoth, wrote under pseudonym Sir Thomas Fitzosborne
Upon this principle I imagine it is that some of the finest pieces of antiquity are written in the dialogue manner. Plato and Tully, it should seem, thought truth could never be examined with more advantage than amidst the amicable opposition of well-regulated converse.
Absurd | Circumstances | Contrast | Conversation | Friend | Language | Learning | Lord | Method | Reason | Spirit | Strength | Wonder | World |
The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.
Absolute | Ambition | Blush | Education | Feelings | Honor | Individual | Men | Pride | Question | Race | Reason | Right | Shame | System | Time | Worth | Ambition | Old |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
We already have the Wooden Pillar, the Steel Pillar and the Plastic Pillar. In a moment we will have the Golden Bail... No, you won't.' We will,' stated the robot simply. No, you won't. It makes my ship work.' In a moment,' repeated the robot patiently, 'we will have the Golden Bail... You will not,' said Zaphod. And then we must go,' said the robot, in all seriousness, 'to a party.' Oh,' said Zaphod, startled, 'can I come?' No,' said the robot, 'we are going to shoot you.' Oh, yeah?' said Zaphod, waggling his gun. Yes,' said the robot, and they shot him. Zaphod was so surprised that they had to shoot him again before he fell down.
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they'd have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City.
Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true; but there is the slime.
Reason |
It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.
The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is, that each is thinking more of what he is intending to say, than of what others are saying; and we never listen when we are planning to speak.
The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.
Conversation | People | Reason | Thinking |
Or I am mad, or else this is a dream; Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to drearn, still let me sleep.
Reason |
Now you speak of ten heavy and forty-eight light precepts, which are to be regarded as the great monastic precepts of the Mahayana. In what sūtra is this taught? The ten heavy precepts in the Brahma Sutra are as follows. 1. Not killing 2. Not stealing 3. No lasciviousness (celibacy) 4. No false language 5. No selling of liquor 6. No discussion of the faults of other sangha members 7. Not praising oneself and criticizing others 8. Not harming others through stinginess 9. Not accepting the repentance of another while maintaining one's anger 10. Not slandering the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha)
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
The illness I suffer from is serious and persistent and my life may be over any day. Whenever I think about you, I become sad and depressed. In my leisure time I have written Precepts for My Daughters in seven chapters. My daughters, each of you make yourself a copy; perhaps it will be of some use and benefit to you. Do your very best once you have left home!
Birth | Day | Duty | Esteem | Labor | Play | Practice | Regard | Worship |
An imposing air should always be taken as an evidence of imposition. - Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.