This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.
Nicholas Black Elk, formally Heȟáka Sápa
Perhaps you have noticed that even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways.
Prayer | Understand |
With the compelling convincingness of dreams, which are vague yet exact, the ghost voice draws us (to ourselves and all of our component selves), lifts them casually out of the well of the past--the well wherein nothing is lost, the deep well of forgetfulness, and remembrance--and tosses them mockingly on the glassy table surface of our consciousness. There we are forced to consider them. There we are forced to regard, analyze, and re-understand
Nothing |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus — the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination, proclaims the voice of thy inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety - no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.
Action | Contemplation | Emotions | Existence | Piety | Study | Contemplation |
Helen Schucman, born Helen Cohn
His voice awaits your silence, for His word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while.
The seeing commit a strange error. They believe that we know the world only through our eyes. For my part, I discovered that the universe consists of pressure, that every object and every living being reveals itself to us at first by a kind of quiet yet unmistakable pressure that indicates its intention and its form. I even experienced the following wonderful fact: A voice, the voice of a person, permits him to appear in a picture. When the voice of a man reaches me, I immediately perceive his figure, his rhythm, and most of his intentions. Even stones are capable of weighing on us from a distance. So are the outlines of distant mountains, and the sudden depression of a lake at the bottom of a valley.
Depression | Intention | Man | Object | Quiet | Universe | World | Following |
J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,--proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,--no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.
Action | Contemplation | Emotions | Existence | Study | Contemplation |
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
Jean Grou, fully Jean Nicholas Grou
Nothing is small or great in God’s sight. Whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling; and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.
Conscience | Right | Wills |
Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night
Detachment | God | Silence | God |
When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
Every leaf in every nook, every wave in every brook,chanting with a solemn voice minds us of our better choice.
Better |
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Lord John Russell
It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.
Great communication depends on two simple skills—context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand. Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it. Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person’s mood and attitude. Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.
Authenticity | Language | Listening | Right | Leader | Understand |