This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright
It would have been impossible for me to have told anyone what I derived from these novels, for it was nothing less than a sense of life itself... It had been only through books - at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions - that I had managed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way. Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books; consequently, my belief in books had risen more out of a sense of desperation than from any abiding conviction of their ultimate value.
Belief | Books | Desperation | Life | Life | Nothing | Sense |
We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure.
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
This strengthens a belief which I have long cherished, that in a few centuries women will be the larger, stronger sex, admired for their biceps and superfluous hair, and that men will be their toys and domestic comforters, exciting tenderness in the female breast by their small feet, pretty soft hands, and general helplessness. I do not think I have a heart, for I have never been able to locate my pulse, or any other symptom of a circulatory system, but I am willing to share any of the benefits of male delicacy.
Belief | Men | Tenderness | Will | Think |
Whether you are really right or not doesn't matter; it's the belief that counts.
It was from him I learned that the stage is too coarse a medium for the works of the supreme poet; Shakespeare's depths can only be plumbed in the solitude of the study. So I used to shut myself up and plumb away for hours, and I acquired such aptitude that for a time there was a belief that I might pipe Shakespeare into young minds of the rest of my days, as a full-fledged academic plumber.
Properly conducted scientific studies . . . give us a pretty good idea of when something is likely to be correct. To me, pretty good is a linguistic statistic that falls somewhere in between more likely than not and beyond a reasonable doubt, et avoides the pitfalls arising from the belief in complete objectivity.
Robert Grosseteste or Grossetete
Command that no one be received, or kept to be of your household indoors or without, if one has not reasonable belief of them that they are faithful, discreet, and painstaking in the office for which they are received, and withal honest and of good manners.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Ask of Me, beautiful mouth, What dost thou ask of Me? For thy suppliant cry Hath ascended on high Inclining My ear to thy plea. First with the lion we met, Next came the leopard’s leap, We were fain to take flight From our garden’s delight And into a hiding-place creep. Hardly these creatures had passed, Sated with Judah’s spoil, Than the wild ass we feared Out of midnight appeared To trample and dwell on our soil. Ishmael’s offspring command Back to his Arab land, As his mother of old To her mistress was told To return and submit to her hand.
Art | Day | Dread | Glory | Heaven | Omnipotence | Praise | Will | Art |
Saul Alinsky, fully Saul David Alinsky
Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically - to promote a cause you believe in.
Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání
If you take better care of your own health, and build up your reserves, it would certainly be better for you and for your work. Then your sensitive, yearning heart, although you may still often suffer for and with others, will be better able to withstand its trials, and you will not get so exhausted, which is certainly no asset to your work for the Cause.
Belief | Cause | Courage | Heart | Land | Problems | Spirit | Tenacity | Time | Will | Friends |
Sharafuddin Ahmad ibn Yahya Maneri, fully Hazrat Makhdum Shaikh Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri
Before your Unique Being, their is neither old nor new: Everything is nothing, nothing at all! Yet He is what He is. How then can we remain separate from You!
Belief | Concealment | God | Light | Man | Unity | Vision | God |
Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání
He is very sorry that such undesirable things are every now and then cropping up in … and discouraging you in your work, keeping you from devoting all your spare time in teaching the Cause, and spreading its principles. He does not wish you, however, to lose heart from such things. As the Cause grows its difficulties will increase and its problems will become more numerous. The friends, especially the older ones, should therefore try and stand unmoved by them. In fact the more their difficulties will increase the more they have to take courage and try to solve them. The Master has often said that sorrows are like furrows, the deeper they go the more productive the land becomes. If this problem. .. should be settled other problems will arise. Are the friends to become discouraged or are they to follow the footsteps of the Master and consider them more as chances to show their tenacity of belief and spirit of sacrifice?
Belief | Books | Civilization | Destiny | Future | God | Human race | Humanity | Impetuosity | Infancy | Life | Life | Love | Past | Promise | Race | Time | Vehemence | Vision | Will | Wisdom | World | Youth | Youth | God | Old |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
My fellow Americans I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. (Comment while testing a microphone before a broadcast 11 Aug 84)
Belief | Government | Land | Obligation | Rights | Government |
Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"
The times when the centre of gravity of political development and the crystallising agent of capitalist contradictions lay on the European continent, are long gone by. To-day Europe is only a link in the tangled chain of international connections and contradictions.
Appearance | Awareness | Destiny | Ideas | Meaning | Omnipotence | Peace | Politics | Proletariat | Revolution | Time | War | World | Awareness |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
The biggest bursts of speciation that we know about in the history of the earth are soon after great cataclysms, like the extinction of the dinosaurs, which create new opportunities, and all sorts of new forms spring up... So, quite often, the reasons for creativity depend on accidents or disasters that prevent the normal habits being carried out.
Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.
Belief | Consequences | World |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
Machines are designed not to be random. When you call up a word processing program on your computer, you don't want it to be different every time you call it up. You want it to stay the same.
Belief | Discovery | Need | Skepticism | Discovery |