This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger
Until I lose my soul and lie Blind to the beauty of the earth, Deaf though shouting wind goes by, Dumb in a storm of mirth; Until my heart is quenched at length And I have left the land of men, Oh, let me love with all my strength Careless if I am loved again.
Margaret Fuller, fully Sara Margaret Fuller, Marchese Ossoli
I am immortal! I know it! I feel it! Hope floods my heart with delight! Running on air mad with life dizzy, reeling, Upward I mount, — faith is sight, life is feeling, Hope is the day-star of might! It was thy kiss, Love, that made me immortal. Probably derived from "Make me immortal with a kiss" in Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Come, let us mount on the wings of the morning, Flying for joy of the flight, Wild with all longing, now soaring, now staying, Mingling like day and dawn, swinging and swaying, Hung like a cloud in the light: I am immortal! I feel it! I feel it! Love bears me up, love is might! Chance cannot touch me! Time cannot hush me! Fear, Hope, and Longing, at strife, Sink as I rise, on, on, upward forever, Gathering strength, gaining breath, — naught can sever Me from the Spirit of Life!
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
And what is Theosophy? A knowledge of God which blossoms like a flower in the depths of the individual soul. God, having vanished from the world, is reborn in the depths of the human heart.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.
You don’t want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.
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Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are the stones.
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Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.
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Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
In the silence between your heartbeat bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there?
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Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
Art is the conveyance of spirit by means of matter.
Everyone is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy -- so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.
Character | Literature | Music | Will |
I should not advise anyone with ordinary independence of mind to attempt the public ear unless he is confident that he can out-lung and out-last his own generation; for if he has any force, people will and ought to be on their guard against him, inasmuch as there is no knowing where he may not take them.
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
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It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
To hell with the cost, if it's a good story, I'll make it. -- When told a particular script was too caustic for film.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Of all the enemies of idleness, want is the most formidable. Want always struggles against idleness; but want herself is often overcome, and every hour shows some who had rather live in ease than in plenty.