This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We must begin by frankly admitting that the first place in which to go looking for the world is not outside us but in ourselves. We are the world. In the deepest ground of our being we remain in metaphysical contact with the whole of that creation in which we are only small parts. Through our senses and our minds, our loves, needs, and desires, we are implicated, without possibility of evasion, in this world of matter and of men, of things and of persons, which not only affect us and change our lives but are also affected and changed by us…The question, then, is not to speculate about how we are to contact the world – as if we were somehow in outer space – but how to validate our relationship, give it a fully honest and human significance, and make it truly productive and worthwhile for our world.
Acceptance | Charity | Grace | Humility | Love | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |
This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love. We have to part now, aware of the love that unites us, the love that unites us in spite of real differences, real emotional friction... The things on the surface are nothing, what is deep is the Real. We are creatures of Love. Let us therefore join hands, as we did before, and I will try to say something that comes out of the depths of our hearts. I ask you to concentrate on the love that is in you, that is in us all. I have no idea what I am going to say. I am going to be silent a minute, and then I will say something... O God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.
Beginning | Grace | Hate | Love | Order | Salvation | Sense | Will | Wrong |
The purpose of education is to show us how to define ourselves authentically and spontaneously in relation to our world—not to impose a prefabricated definition of the world, still less an arbitrary definition of ourselves as individuals.
Song From The Persian - Ah, sad are they who know not love, But, far from passion's tears and smiles, Drift down a moonless sea, beyond The silvery coasts of fairy isles. And sadder they whose longing lips Kiss empty air, and never touch The dear warm mouth of those they love -- Waiting, wasting, suffering much. But clear as amber, fine as musk, Is life to those who, pilgrim-wise, Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk, Each morning nearer Paradise. Ah, not for them shall angels pray! They stand in everlasting light, They walk in Allah's smile by day, And slumber in his heart by night.
The babbling sounds that mimic echo plays, The fairy shade, and its eternal maze? Nature and Art in all their charms combin'd, And all Elysium to one view confin'd!
Age | Beauty | Books | Children | Cost | Credit | Day | Disdain | Example | Glory | Grace | Heaven | Hope | Kill | Little | Love | Marriage | Nature | Reward | Sense | Silence | Thought | Time | Truth | Wants | Waste | Wisdom | Beauty | Old | Thought |
Blessed are you Hashem, our God, King of the Universe Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates all. He Who illuminates the earth and those who dwell upon it, with compassion, and in goodness He renews every day, perpetually the work of Creation. How abundant are your works, Hashem, all of them with wisdom You made; full is the earth with Your possessions. You are the King Who was exalted in solitude from before creation, Who is praised, glorified, and upraised since days of old. God of eternity, with Your compassion that is abundant, be compassionate on us; Oh Master of our power, our rocklike stronghold; O shield of our salvation, Who is a stronghold for us. The blessed God, Who is great in knowledge, prepared and produced the rays of the sun; the Beneficent One that he fashioned provided honor for His name. Luminaries did he place all around His power. The leaders of his legions, holy ones who exalt the Almighty, constantly relate the honor of God and his sanctity. May you be blessed, and for the luminaries of light that You have made, may people glorify You forever. May You be blessed, our Rock, our King, and our Redeemer, creator of holy ones; may your name be praised forever, Our King, O fashioner of ministering angels; and Whose ministering angels all stand at the summit of the universe of the living God and King of the universe. They are all beloved; they are all flawless; they are all mighty; they are do with dread and reverence in holiness and purity, in song and hymn, and bless, praise, glorify, revere, sanctify, and declare the kingship of the Name of God, the King Who is great, Who is mighty and Who is awesome; holy is He. Then they all accept upon themselves the yoke of the sovereignty of heaven, from one another, and grant permission one to another, of Creation. As it is said: Give thanks to Him Who makes the great luminaries, for enduring forever is His kindness. A new light on Zion may You shine, and may we merit, all of us speedily, to benefit from its light. Blessed are You, Hashem Who fashions the luminaries.
William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley
Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it passed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay. And what with the dawn of night began With the dusk of day was done; For that is the way of woman and man, When a hazard has made them one. Arc upon arc, from shade to shine, The World went thundering free; And what was his errand but hers and mine -- The lords of him, I and she? O, it's die we must, but it's live we can, And the marvel of earth and sun Is all for the joy of woman and man And the longing that makes them one.
In the sixth petition (which is, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil) we pray, That God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
In the third petition (which is, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven) we pray, That God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in heaven.
The lapse of time and rivers is the same, Both speed their journey with a restless stream; The silent pace, with which they steal away, No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay; Alike irrevocable both when past, And a wide ocean swallows both at last. Though each resemble each in every part, A difference strikes at length the musing heart; Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound, How laughs the land with various plenty crown’d! But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.
Abuse of the Gospel - Too many, Lord, abuse Thy grace In this licentious day, And while they boast they see Thy face, They turn their own away. Thy book displays a gracious light That can the blind restore; But these are dazzled by the sight, And blinded still the more. The pardon such presume upon, They do not beg but steal; And when they plead it at Thy throne, Oh! where's the Spirit's seal? Was it for this, ye lawless tribe, The dear Redeemer bled? Is this the grace the saints imbibe From Christ the living head? Ah, Lord, we know Thy chosen few Are fed with heavenly fare; But these, -- the wretched husks they chew, Proclaim them what they are. The liberty our hearts implore Is not to live in sin; But still to wait at Wisdom's door, Till Mercy calls us in.
Battle | Cause | Change | Cruelty | Day | Death | Future | Grace | Heart | Heaven | Life | Life | Providence | Scripture | Temper | Words | Cruelty |
Edward Dyer, fully Sir Edward Dyer
Love-Contradictions - As rare to heare as seldome to be seene, It cannot be nor never yet hathe bene That fire should burne with perfecte heate and flame Without some matter for to yealde the same. A straunger case yet true by profe I knowe A man in joy that livethe still in woe: A harder happ who hathe his love at lyste Yet lives in love as he all love had miste: Whoe hathe enougehe, yet thinkes he lives wthout, Lackinge no love yet still he standes in doubte. What discontente to live in suche desyre, To have his will yet ever to requyre.
Better | Cause | Comfort | Day | Death | Faith | Famous | Fate | Force | Fortune | Grace | Hate | Hope | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Love | Mirth | Nothing | Present | Quiet | Rest | Reward | Safe | Sense | Sound | Thought | Trust | Will | World | Fate | Thought |
O God, grant that today I may not disappoint any friend; I may not grieve any loved one; I may not fail anyone to whom I have a duty; I may not shame myself. Grant that today I may do my work with honesty and fidelity; I may take my pleasure in happiness and purity. Grant that today I may lead no one astray; I may not make goodness and faith harder for anyone. Help me today to be a help and example to all; to bring strength and encouragement wherever I am.
I understand that in France, though the use of rouge be general, the use of white paint is far from being so. In England, she that uses one commonly uses both. Now, all white paints, or lotions, or whatever they may be called, are mercurial; consequently poisonous, consequently ruinous in time to the constitution. The Miss B—— above mentioned was a miserable witness of the truth, it being certain that her flesh fell from her bones before she died. Lady Coventry was hardly a less melancholy proof of it; and a London physician perhaps, were he at liberty to blab, could publish a bill of female mortality of a length that would astonish us.
Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, that dread th' encroachments of our growing streets, tight boxes neatly sash'd, and in a blaze with all a july sun's collected rays, delight the citizen, who gasping there, breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air. O sweet retirement, who would balk the thought that could afford retirement, or could not? 'Tis such an easy walk, so smooth and straight,-- the second milestone fronts the garden gate; a step if fair, and if a shower approach you find safe shelter in the next stagecoach, there prison'd in a parlor snug and small, like bottled wasps upon a southern wall, the man of business and his friends compress'd, forget their labors, and yet find no rest; but still 'tis rural,--trees are to be seen from every window, and the fields are green.
Grace |