This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness.
Blessings | Desire | God | Heart | Knowledge | Means | Meditation | Noise | Nothing | Pleasure | Quiet | Sense | Silence | Soul | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Work | God | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
As God sets the soul in this dark night… He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. God transfers to the spirit the good things and the strength of the senses… if it is not immediately conscious of spiritual sweetness and delight, but only of aridity and lack of sweetness, the reason for this is the strangeness of the exchange. #6. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time… then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care… it is like the air which, if one would close one’s hand upon it, escapes. In this state of contemplation… it is God Who is now working in the soul. He binds its interior faculties, and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. God communicates… by pure spirit. From this time forward imagination and fancy can find no support in any meditation.
Contemplation | Darkness | Faith | God | Grace | Heart | Love | Meditation | Noise | Order | Pleasure | Practice | Progress | Rest | Sense | Silence | Solitude | Soul | Thought | Understanding | Will | God | Contemplation | Obstacle | Thought |
Their humanity will be conformed to the humanity of the Word and they will delight in it.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
It is commonly said: What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.
All the good we do, we do for love of God, and the evil we avoid, we avoid for love of God.
Action | God | Meditation | Nothing | Order | Study | Understanding | God |
The realized soul can play with the universe the way a child does a ball.
Pain |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything. Life is made up of little things. True greatness consists in being great in little things.
Pain |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
Death | Health | Life | Life | Need | Pain | Perplexity | Repentance | Will |
Sholem Aleichem, pen name of Sholem Yakovf Rabinowitz or Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich
If somebody tells you you have ears like a donkey, pay no attention. But if two people tell you, buy yourself a saddle.
It struck me very deep this afternoon going with a hackney coach from my Lord Treasurer's down Holborne, the coachman I found to drive easily and easily, at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand, and told me that he was suddenly stuck very sick, and almost blind, he could not see. So I 'light and went into another coach with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself lest he should have been struck with the plague, being at the end of town that I took him up; But god have mercy upon us all!
Pain |
Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL
Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. This is possible only by hearing and chanting the divine activities of the Supreme Lord…
Intelligence | Lord | Meditation | Mind | Progress |
Work and play are an artificial pair of opposites, because the best kind of play contains an element of work, and the most productive kind of work must include something of the spirit of play.
Pain |
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few… the goal of practice is to always keep your beginner’s mind…For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. If you discriminate too much you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. If we lose our original self-sufficient mind, we will lose all precepts. When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violated in your own precepts: not to tell lies, not to steal, not to kill, not to be immoral, and so forth. If you keep your original mind, the precepts will keep themselves. In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something’. All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
A poor girl may have an illusion that a prince will come and fetch her home. It is possible, some such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less probable.
Pain | Pleasure | Relationship | Time |
The Self, smaller than the small, greater than the great, is hidden in the hearts of creatures. The wise, by the grace of the Creator, behold the Lord, majestic and desireless and become free from grief.
Lord | Meditation | Self |
Rudra is truly one; for the knowers of Brahman do not admit the existence of a second, He alone rules all the worlds by His powers. He dwells as the inner Self of every living being. After having created all the worlds, He, their Protector, takes them back into Himself at the end of time.
Illusion | Individual | Knowledge | Meditation | Self |
When there is no darkness of ignorance, there is no day or night, neither being nor non-being; the pure Brahman alone exists. That immutable Reality is the meaning of "That"; It is adored by the Sun. From It has proceeded the ancient wisdom.
Birth | Death | Lord | Meditation |