This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.
World |
Peace Pilgrim, born Mildred Lisette Norman Ryder
Before the tongue can speak, it must have lost the power to wound.
Power |
Thy great name in all its awful brevity, hath nought Unholy breeding it, but doth bless rather the tongue that uses it; for me, I ask no higher office than to fling my spirit at Thy feet, and cry Thy name, God! through eternity.
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya, aka Rabi'a of Basra or Basri, Saint Rabia of Basra
The source of my suffering and loneliness is deep in my heart. This is a disease no doctor can cure. Only Union with the Friend can cure it. Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word My choicest hours Are the hours I spend with You – O God, I can’t live in this world Without remembering You– How can I endure the next world Without seeing Your face? I am a stranger in Your country And lonely among Your worshippers: This is the substance of my complaint.
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Govern your tongue before all other things, following the gods.
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
You should give a possibility to mature to your thoughts under your tongue before you begin to speak.
R. I. Fitzhenry, fully Robert I. Fitzhenry
The Englishman loves to roll his tongue around the word, 'extraordinary'. It so pleases him that he is reluctant to finish the sound which goes on into harmonics and overtones. The North American publisher is likewise inclined.
Sound |
Régis Debray, fully Jules Régis Debray
C is when our environment (natural or cultural) has started to hurt us that it's notifies its existence, and we bare any more its weaknesses, the more we will have trouble. Thus does one discovers his tongue when, al abroad, we can not speak it - or that they had a homeland, when one is exiled.
Will |
A fluent tongue is the only thing a mother don't like her daughter to resemble her in.
The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.
Desire | Moderation | Nature | Moderation |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
A Child My Choice - Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled. I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His; While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss. Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light, To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight. He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due; First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true. Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is: As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless. His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all; His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall. Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing; Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring. Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly, Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
Angels | Birth | Choice | Death | Folly | Force | Friend | God | Heart | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Praise | Strength | Will | God | Child |
That earlier hope had, if fulfilled, Been but child's pap and toothless meat — And meaning blunt and deed unwilled, And we but motes that dance in light And in such light gleam like the core Of light, but lightless, are in right Blind dust that fouls the unswept floor For, no: not faith by fable lives, But from the faith the fable springs — It never is the song that gives Tongue life, it is the tongue that sings; And sings the song. Then, let the act Speak, it is the unbetrayable Command, if music, let the fact Make music's motion; us, the fable.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
My soul shall declare to Thee Thou art her former And shall Thee as her maker, O God, testify, At Thy word 'Be, O Soul' did she take on existence, And from naught didst Thou draw her as light from the eye. Of Thee she shall own and affirm, hand uplifted, ’Twas Thou that didst breathe her in me, and as due For that work she shall pour out her thanks and bear witness That to me she was given Thy bidding to do. She serves Thee as handmaid while yet in the body, And the day she returns to the land whence she came, In Thee will she dwell, for in Thee is her being, Doth she rise, doth she sit, Thou art with her the same. She was Thine when unborn ere the day of her breathing, With wisdom and knowledge by Thee she was fed, And to Thee for her ordinance looks, and subsistence, Indebted to Thee for her water and bread. Her gaze is to Thee, and in Thee is her hoping When like novice in child-birth she cries in affright. O take her torn heart as a sacrifice offered, And her ribs lacerated for fiery rite. To Thee let her pour out her tears as drink-off’ring, Let the breath of her sighing as incense-cloud be, At her gate and her doorway she watches with prayer, She is burning like flame with her passion for Thee. She must ever approach Thee as servant his master, Or as handmaiden looks to her mistress’s eye, She must spread out her palms in request and petition And turn herself humbly to Thee in her cry. For call Thee she must, nor endure to be silent, Like a bird in the net her one hope is in flight, In the depth of the night she must rise and keep vigil, For her work is Thy works to declare and recite. For Thee she must pine and of Thee make entreaty, Her hand must be clean and as stainless her thought. Her breach do Thou heal, be her hope and her helper, When she draws nigh redeem her, her sin count as naught. Behold her affliction, and hark to her weeping, In the sphere of the soul she with Thee is alone, Repay and restore her, attend to her anguish, When her sobs and her tears her backslidings bemoan. Bemock, O Almighty, the foes that bemock her, Avenge with due vengeance her insults and shame, In her stress be a rock of support ‘gainst her foeman, Nor yield up the child Thou to manhood didst frame. No enemy came, whose reproach could be borne with, No cruel one hunted her down in her track, ’Twas the friends of her household betrayed her—her passions— ’Twas her comrade who bloodily stabbed in the back. I ever am seeking my body’s best welfare, Yet it in return would my spirit undo. Ah, truly the fruit of the tree in its root is, The proverb "Like mother, like daughter" is true.
Dawn | Good | Greatness | Little | Praise | Service | Spirit | Will |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
O God, I am ashamed and confounded To stand before Thee with this my knowledge That even as the might of Thy greatness, So is the completeness of my poverty and humbleness, That even as the might of Thy potency So is the weakness of my ability, And that even as Thou art perfect, so am I wanting. For Thou art a Unity, and Thou art living, Thou art mighty, and Thou art permanent, And Thou art great, and Thou art wise, and Thou art God! And I am but a clod, and a worm, Dust from the ground, A vessel full of shame, A mute stone, A passing shadow, "A wind that fleeth away and returneth not again." To an asp akin, Deceitful underneath, Uncircumcised of heart, Great in wrath, Craftsman in sin and deception, Haughty of eye, Short in forbearance, Impure of lips, Crooked of ways, And hot-footed. What am I? What is my life? What my might and what my righteousness? Naught is the sum of me all the days of my being, And how much the more so after my death! From nothing I came, And to nothing I go. Lo! before Thee am I come, as one "not according to the law," With insolence of brow, And uncleanness of thoughts, p. 109 And a lewd desire On his idols turned, And lust showing itself master; With a soul impure And a heart unclean, Perishing and corrupted, And a body plagued With a rabble of pains Increasing until increase is impossible.
Body | Life | Life | Lord | Means | Thought | Truth | Thought | Understand |