This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.
Heaven |
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, known as Dean Stanley
There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.
When our learning exceeds our deeds we are like trees whose branches are many but whose roots are few: the wind comes and uproots them... But when our deeds exceed our learning we are like trees whose branches are few but whose roots are many, so that even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against them, they would be unable to move them.
Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to Hell.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which seems, in some sense, outside human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty. Those who promote life do not have life for their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal, something that appears to imagination to live in a heaven remote from strife and failure and the devouring jaws of Time.
Beauty | Eternal | Existence | Failure | God | Heaven | Imagination | Life | Life | Mankind | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Time | Truth | Failure | God |
Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy Bussy-Rabutin
Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
Like the rainbow, peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in heaven. Heaven bathes it in hues of light - it springs up amid tears and clouds - it is a reflection of the eternal sun - it is an assurance of calm - it is the sign of a great covenant between God and man - it is an emanation from the distant orb of immortal light.
Earth | Eternal | God | Heaven | Light | Man | Peace | Reflection | Tears | God |
The heart of man is more dangerous than mountains and rivers, more difficult to understand than Heaven itself.
Heart | Heaven | Man | Understand |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Music illustrates the primordial forces of nature, while li reflects the products of creation. Heaven represents the principle of eternal motion, while Earth represents the principle of remaining still, and these two principles of motion and rest permeate life between Heaven and Earth.
Earth | Eternal | Heaven | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Principles | Rest |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Music expresses the harmony of the universe, while rituals express the order of the universe. Through harmony all things are influenced, and through order all things have a proper place. When rituals and music are well established, we have the Heaven and Earth functioning in perfect order.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows over it.
The wise man… when he must govern, know how to do nothing… In complete silence, his voice will be like thunder. His movements will be invisible, like those of a spirit, but the powers of heaven will go with them. Unconcerned, doing nothing, he will see all things grow ripe around him. Where will he find time to govern?
Heaven | Man | Nothing | Silence | Spirit | Time | Will | Wise |
The net of Heaven is large and wide, but it lets nothing through.
Man is here to experience the unity of his own consciousness, to rise from suffering to perfection, and in the triumph of enlightenment to reclaim the earth as a heaven designed from him. Beneath the mask of suffering, the meaning of life is limitless freedom and the conquest of death.
Conquest | Consciousness | Death | Earth | Enlightenment | Experience | Freedom | Heaven | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Perfection | Suffering | Unity |