This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The road to truth is the effort of the heart, not the mind.
Abstinence | Fanaticism | Heart | Rest |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
The third day was nearly all wet, though it cleared towards evening and a fine sunset crimsoned the canal. Today it had come on about lunch time, a different rain; finer, gentler, more inexorable, that made the air woolly, left a muddy taste in one’s mouth and dulled everything.
Try not to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not be afraid that your life is turned upside down. How do you know that what you're used to is better than the things that will come?
Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown
This conversation, you will not be surprised to know, was the impetus for their breakup, given that it caused her to realize the emotion that she had thought was her not liking him very much was, in fact, her not liking him at all. Because despite his money and his looks and all the good-on-paper attributes he possessed, he was not a reader, and, well, let's just say that is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put.
I was impressed by the earnestness of your struggle to find a purpose for the life of the individual and of mankind as a whole. In my opinion there can be no reasonable answer if the question is put this way. If we speak of the purpose and goal of an action we mean simply the question: which kind of desire should we fulfill by the action or its consequences or which undesired consequences should be prevented? We can, of course, also speak in a clear way of the goal of an action from the standpoint of a community to which the individual belongs. In such cases the goal of the action has also to do at least indirectly with fulfillment of desires of the individuals which constitute a society.
Shine comforts from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight From these that my poor company detest; And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.
Art | Beauty | Death | Enough | Evil | Father | Fortune | God | Good | Government | Heart | Rage | Shame | Tears | Vengeance | Virtue | Virtue | Government | Art | Beauty | God |
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, as doth the blushing discontented sun from out the fiery portal of the east.
Heart |
Setting aside his high blood's royalty, And let him be no kinsman to my liege, I do defy him and I spit at him, Call him a slanderous coward and a villain; Which to maintain, I would allow him odds And meet him, were I tied to run afoot Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps, Or any other ground inhabitable Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
Set we forward; let a Roman and a British ensign wave friendly together. So through Lud's town march, and in the temple of the great Jupiter our peace we'll ratify, seal it with feasts. Set on there! Never was a war did cease, ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace.
Heart |
Sir, my circumstances, Being so near the truth as I will make them, Must first induce you to believe; whose strength I will confirm with oath, which I doubt not You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find You need it not. Cymbeline (Iachimo at II, iv)
She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your brood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team Begins his golden progress in the east.
Heart |
I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business?
He told me that one of the reasons people are so unhappy is they don't talk to themselves. He said you have to keep a conversation going with yourself throughout your life to see how you're doing, to keep your focus, to remain your own friend. He told me that he talked to himself all the time, and that it helped him to grow stronger and better every day.
Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore—despite...
Chance | Divinity | Earth | Experience | Life | Life | Pain | Purpose | Purpose | Search | Suffering |