This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I love writers who limit themselves, who write beneath their intelligence.
Words |
Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown
I have loved this disaster of a library since I was old enough to read.
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
This is very nice, said Mr. Barlow, looking at the Contessina. She had on a dress of heliotrope organdie, with a fichu folded across the bosom with that best discretion for the display of pretty curves. Her skin was very dark against the heliotrope, as fresh as a young petal, as brown as old, old ivory.
The way we see what God is only a reflection of the way we see Anfsnna. If not God brings to our minds to fear and blame, it means that a great deal of fear and blame is flowing in our souls, but if we saw God full of love and compassion , we will be well
So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found: Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better that the world may see my pleasure; Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look, Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. Sonnet 75
So went to bed, where eagerly his sickness Pursued him still; and three nights after this, After the hour of eight, which he himself Foretold should be his last, full of repentance, Continual meditations, tears and sorrows, He gave his honors to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
Words |
He is only happy when he can maintain himself - mentally and spiritually - at the intersection between a vertical line and horizontal one, in a state of perfect balance. For this, he needs to know where he is located every moment, both in his relationship to the divine and to his family here on earth. If he loses that balance, he loses his power.
My guru says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it...
Friend | Music | Words | World | Understand |
I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
He was playing a character I had invented, which is somewhat telling. In desperate love, it's always like this, isn't it? In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.
Better | Conversation | Life | Life | People |
Let it be sufficient to say that, on this night, he was still my lighthouse and albatross in equal measure. The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn’t want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.
Discipline | Peace | Speech | Words | World |
Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me.
Everyone makes their own path, and I must make mine. The Bhagavad Gita - and ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life perfectly. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. It is mine.