This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The Divine Guru has opened his eyes. Doubt has been dispelled; my service has been successful.
Disease |
Gain is deposited in my right hand, victory in my left. Let me become a conqueror of cattle, horses, wealth, and gold.
Disease |
The balanced persons will be active because it is their duty. They will not be agitated by anything - failure or success. The Godly will take up activity as a means of worshipping God; and they leave the result to God. They know that they are but instruments in the hands of God.
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
At last Paul went on. I know how it is, son. You won't do it, you haven't the nerve for it-you're soft. He waited, while those cruel words sank in. Yes, that's the word, soft. You've always had everything you wanted- you've had it handed to you on a silver tray, and it's made you a weakling. You have a good heart, you know what's right, but you couldn't bear to act, you'd be too afraid of hurting somebody.
Words |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it.
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
There’s no excuse for poverty in a state as rich as California. We can produce so much food that we have to dump it into our bay.
Distinguish | Dreams | Men | Music | Poetry | Sacred | Words | Friends |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
No, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
If at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
Chophouse. It was his descriptions of meat, though, that most concerned Americans. Even President Theodore Roosevelt seemed to be more shocked by the details of how cattle and hogs were being sliced into beef and pork--and by how much condemned meat was ending up on American dinner tables--than by the workers' plight. Within a matter of months, Sinclair's book became an international bestseller and sparked legislation regulating the meat industry for the first time. I aimed for the public's heart ... and by accident I hit it in the stomach.
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What I say is — Bootstrap-lifting!
Words |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.
Words |
There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.
You cannot count on the physical proximity of someone you love, all the time. A seed that sprouts at the foot of its parent tree remains stunted until it is transplanted. Rama will be in my care, and he will be quite well. But ultimately, he will leave me too. Every human being, when the time comes, has to depart to seek his fulfillment in his own way.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. You must change your life, he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
I still very well remember the moment in 1978 when me and my friends learned that Karol Wojtyla was elected the pope. It was a moment of an immense joy for us. I even think that we were so delighted that we danced for joy.
It has not dawned upon most of us that we do not need some new thing so much as some old things that would be new if anybody tried them.