This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
R. G. Collingwood, fully Robert George Collingwood
To regard such a positive mental science [psychology] as rising above the sphere of history, and establishing the permanent and unchanging laws of human nature, is therefore possible only to a person who mistakes the transient conditions of a certain historical age for the permanent conditions of human life.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
Acquaintance | Age | Ends | Life | Life | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Research | Strength | World |
R. J. Stewart, fully Robert John Stewart
The Fairy & Human Relations Congress is not a New Age forum event. It
Age |
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
It is no small irony that in the age of ‘technological man’ people actually play a greater role in ecosystems than ever. For example, H. sapiens has long been the most successful terrestrial carnivore ever to have walked the earth and, during the 20th Century, humans became the most voracious predator in the world’s oceans. Remarkably, considering our unchallenged status as top carnivore, we are also the dominant herbivore in grasslands and forests all over the planet, particularly if we consider the demands of ‘industrial metabolism’ (Rees 2003a, Fowler and Hobbs 2003). And human impacts transcend biology, earth scientists assert that economic activity has become the most significant geological force altering the face of the planet and climatologists agree that we are now actually beginning to affect global climate.
Age | Beginning | Earth | Force | Global | Irony | People | Play |
Rahel Varnhagen, Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen née Levin later Robert
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.
Age |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future lessens
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Suddenly, from all the green around you, something-you don't know what-has disappeared; you feel it creeping closer to the window, in total silence. From the nearby wood you hear the urgent whistling of a plover, reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome: so much solitude and passion come from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide away from us, cautiously, as though they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying. And reflected on the faded tapestries now; the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long childhood hours when you were so afraid.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings which one had long seen coming; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, to parents that one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was joy for someone else); to childhood illness that so strangely began with a number of profound and grave transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars-and it is not enough if one may think all of this. One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor, and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again. But one must also have been beside the dying, one must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises. And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, to gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves-not until then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.
Childhood | Enough | Grave | Joy | Men | Parents | Patience | Quiet | Think |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Sex is difficult; yes. But those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. If you just recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own talent and nature, out of your own experience and childhood and strength, to achieve a wholly individual relation to sex (one that is not influenced by convention and custom), then you will no longer have to be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your dearest possession.
Childhood | Convention | Experience | Individual | Will | Talent | Afraid |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
To have a childhood means to live a thousand lives before the one.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.
The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.
Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch
Remember brick walls let us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don't really want to achieve their childhood dreams.
Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch
So what is today's talk about then? It's about my childhood dreams and how I've achieved them
Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.
Age | Literature | Poetry |
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
Behind it was that vast suspension bridge which always troubles me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct.
Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
Locked into everything is a mystery. We then try to find, in any given age as writers, the truths that we grew up with. You cannot grow up in a period and not be a child of your time.