This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki
We are not told of things that happened to specific people exactly as they happened; but the beginning is when there are good things and bad things, things that happen in this life which one never tires of seeing and hearing about, things which one cannot bear not to tell of and must pass on for all generations. If the storyteller wishes to speak well, then he chooses the good things; and if he wishes to hold the reader’s attention he chooses bad things, extraordinarily bad things. Good things and bad things alike, they are things of this world and no other. Writers in other countries approach the matter differently. Old stories in our own are different from new. There are differences in the degree of seriousness. But to dismiss them as lies is itself to depart from the truth. Even in the writ which the Buddha drew from his noble heart are parables, devices for pointing obliquely at the truth. To the ignorant they may seem to operate at cross purposes. The Greater Vehicle is full of them, but the general burden is always the same. The difference between enlightenment and confusion is of about the same order as the difference between the good and the bad in a romance. If one takes the generous view, then nothing is empty and useless.
Care | Cause | Compassion | Despise | Fault | Good | Listening | Object | Opinion | People | Slander | Taste | Will | World | Slander | Fault |
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
No woman who observes these three fundamentals of life has ever had a bad reputation or has fallen into disgrace. If a woman fail to observe them, how can her name be honored; how can she but bring disgrace upon herself?
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
If husband and wife have the habit of staying together, never leaving one another, and following each other around within the limited space of their own rooms, then they will lust after and take liberties with one another. From such action improper language will arise between the two This kind of discussion may lead co licentiousness. But of licentiousness will be born a heart of disrespect to the husband. Such a result comes from not knowing that one should stay in one's proper place.
Authority | Conduct | Control | Husband | Men | Nothing | Order | Purpose | Purpose | Relationship | Wife |
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
Now For self-culture nothing equals respect for others. To counteract firmness nothing equals compliance. Consequently it can be said that the Way of respect and acquiescence is woman's most important principle of conduct. So respect may be defined as nothing other than holding on to that which is permanent; and acquiescence nothing other than being liberal and generous. Those who are steadfast in devotion know that they should stay in their proper places; those who are liberal and generous esteem others, and honor and serve chem.
Age | Authority | Books | Boys | Children | Conduct | Education | Men | Present | Relationship | Rites | Rule | Study | Teach | Understand |
I have not been animated in my life to fight against race and sex discrimination simply because of my own identity. That would mean that one must be South African to fight apartheid, or a poor white in Appalachia to fight poverty, or Jewish to fight anti-Semitism. And I just reject that conception of how struggles should be waged.
Nobody is going to buy into the next million [employees] without having some sense what happened to the first million... This is too big for me to put my faith in.
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
A living dog's better than a dead lion.
Little |
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
The terrorists know what is at stake, which is why they are pulling out all the stops to derail our efforts. They understand that a free and democratic Iraq is a serious blow to their interests.
Wealth |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
Rosalind flung herself into the drawing-room; it was honey-colored and lovely in the pale spring light, another little clock was ticking in the corner, there were more bowls of primroses and black-eyed, lowering anemones. The tarnished mirror on the wall distorted and reproved her angry face in its mild mauveness.
Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.
Our message is clear. We count. Children count. Everybody counts, so count everybody,
Better | Equality | Example | Family | Organization |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.
Shine comforts from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight From these that my poor company detest; And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.
Art | Beauty | Death | Enough | Evil | Father | Fortune | God | Good | Government | Heart | Rage | Shame | Tears | Vengeance | Virtue | Virtue | Government | Art | Beauty | God |
The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi warned, you are destined for unhappiness. Better to live a life of single-pointed focus, he taught. But what about the benefits of living harmoniously among extremes? What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?
Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years--I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue.
Better | Depression | Dreams | Important | Integrity | Marriage | Men | Mother | Relationship | Sense | Ugly | Talent |