This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Our hearts deceive us, because we leave them to themselves, are absent from them, taken up in outward rules and forms of living and praying. But this kind of praying, which takes all its thoughts and words only from the state of our hearts, makes it impossible for us to be strangers to ourselves. The strength of every sin, the power of every evil temper, the most secret workings of our hearts, the weakness of any or all our virtues, is with a noonday clearness forced to be seen, as soon as the heart is made our prayer book, and we pray nothing, but according to what we read, and find there.
Distinction | Glory | God | Grace | Haste | Man | Nature | Piety | Religion | Service | Spirit | Will | God | Old |
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
Self-interest | Virtue | Virtue |
There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.
The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.
Self-interest | Virtue | Virtue |
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
Confidence | Love |
Weakness is the only fault that is incorrigible.
O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. Henry VIII (Wolsey at III, ii)
Beauty | Looks | Play | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Youth | Youth | Beauty |
Pity, like a naked, new-born babe striding the blast, or heaven's cherubins, horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The Self (purusha) exists, since an aggregate must be for another's use, since this must be the converse of that which has the three gunas, since there must be a superintendent and also someone to experience, and since activity is for the sake of freedom.
Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
A good wife is one who serves her husband in the morning like a mother does, loves him in the day like a sister does and pleases him like a prostitute in the night.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Through virtue there is ascent; through vice there is descent; through knowledge there is deliverance; there is bondage through the reverse.
Attainment | Rest | Self | Virtue | Virtue |