This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Be not anxious about thy provision for old age, for by all appearance thou wilt never see it. It is more than probable thou wilt be sooner at thy journey's end. The body is weak; it is even stepping down to salute corruption as its mother, ere it has well entered the hall of the world: thy tabernacle pins seem to be drawing out by little and little already. Courage then, O my soul; ere long the devil, and the world, and the flesh shall be bruised underthy feet; and thou shalt be received into eternal mansions. But though the Lord should lengthen out thy days to old age, he that brought thee into life will not forsake thee then either. If he give thee life, he will give thee meat. Keep a loose hold of the world then; contemn it if thou wouldst be a fisher of men..
Change | Force | God | Means | Silence | Submission | Will | God |
This was not the very finest quality of weaving with gold thread, of the kind that was being produced for the leading courts of the day by the Brussels workshops. Rather, it reflects the sort of medium-quality tapestries that the Florence workshops were producing at this time for use in the Medici palaces. Still, the pride they must have felt, knowing this would be destined to go to Como. Tapestry was such an important part of the theatrical presentation of the day. It was the whole stage set against which the formal side of life was acted out.
Silence |
At bottom, it is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have intellect enough. He will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or failing that, perhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he write at all; and if so, whether in prose or in verse, will depend on accidents: who knows on what extremely trivial accidents, — perhaps on his having had a singing-master, on his being taught to sing in his boyhood! But the faculty which enables him to discern the inner heart of things, and the harmony that dwells there (for whatsoever exists has a harmony in the heart of it, or it would not hold together and exist), is not the result of habits or accidents, but the gift of Nature herself; the primary outfit for a Heroic Man in what sort soever. To the Poet, as to every other, we say first of all, See. If you cannot do that, it is of no use to keep stringing rhymes together, jingling sensibilities against each other, and name yourself a Poet; there is no hope for you. If you can, there is, in prose or verse, in action or speculation, all manner of hope. The crabbed old Schoolmaster used to ask, when they brought him a new pupil, 'But are ye sure he's not a dunce?' Why, really one might ask the same thing, in regard to every man proposed for whatsoever function; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure he's.
What a wretched thing is all fame! A renown of the highest sort endures, say, for two thousand years. And then? Why, then, a fathomless eternity swallows it. Work for eternity; not the meagre rhetorical eternity of the periodical critics, but for the real eternity wherein dwelleth the Divine.
Silence |
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
Silence |
Unity, agreement, is always silent or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself.
The heart always sees before than the head can see.
History | Perfection | Sacred | Silence | Will |
Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks.
The beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they elude pursuit.
Silence |
Smile out; but still suffer: the paths of love are rougher than thoroughfares of stones.
Silence |
The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.
Action | Agitation | Distinguish | Dreams | Man | Object | Sense | Silence | Thought | Absurdity | Think | Thought |
A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Choice | Confidence | Delusion | Government | Men | Silence | Trust | Government | Parent |
In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.