This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun ray's do not burn until brought to a focus.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. As for any other freedom it is but a mockery and a delusion, for however free you may think yourself, you have to use the door when you go out of the room, nor are you free to make yourself young at will or to profit by the sun at night... Not-being is not freedom.
When our learning exceeds our deeds we are like trees whose branches are many but whose roots are few: the wind comes and uproots them... But when our deeds exceed our learning we are like trees whose branches are few but whose roots are many, so that even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against them, they would be unable to move them.
Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy Bussy-Rabutin
Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Anger | Confidence | Enemy | Will | Forgive |
Like the rainbow, peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in heaven. Heaven bathes it in hues of light - it springs up amid tears and clouds - it is a reflection of the eternal sun - it is an assurance of calm - it is the sign of a great covenant between God and man - it is an emanation from the distant orb of immortal light.
Earth | Eternal | God | Heaven | Light | Man | Peace | Reflection | Tears | God |
Chief Seattle, also spelled Seathl
Every part of this country is sacred to my people... Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.
Events | Fate | Life | Life | Past | People | Sacred | Fate |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows over it.
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
The sun is 93 million miles from the Earth; it is the center of the solar system, and by the power of gravity holds every planet in its orbit. Yet that very same sun can ripen a bunch of grapes as though that was all it had to do.
Sum up at night what thou hast done by day, and in the morning what thou hast to do; dress and undress thy soul; mark the decay or growth of it. If with thy watch that too be down, then wind up both. Since thou shalt be most surely judged, make thine accounts agree.
Let me but live from year to year, with forward face and unreluctant soul; not hurrying to, nor turning from, the goal; not mourning for the things that disappear in the dim past, nor holding back in fear from what the future veils; but with a whole and happy heart, that pays its toll to Youth and Age, and travels with cheer. So let the way wind up the hill or down o’er rough and smooth, the journey will be joy: still seeking what I sought when but a boy, new friendship, high adventure, and a crown, my heart will keep the courage of the quest, and hope the road’s last turn will be the best.
Adventure | Age | Courage | Fear | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Journey | Joy | Mourning | Past | Soul | Will | Youth | Youth |
Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
Happy is the man who has that in his soul which acts upon the dejected as April airs upon violet roots. Gifts from the hand are silver and gold, but the heart gives that which neither silver nor gold can buy. To be full of goodness, full of cheerfulness, full of sympathy, full of helpful hope, causes a man to carry blessings of which he is himself as unconscious as a lamp is of its own shining. Such a one moves on human life as stars move on dark seas to bewildered mariners; as the sun wheels, bringing all the season with him from the south.
Blessings | Cheerfulness | Gold | Happy | Heart | Hope | Life | Life | Man | Soul | Sympathy |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
These motions everywhere in nature must surely be the circulations of God. The flowing sail, the running stream, the waving tree, the roving wind – whence else their infinite health and freedom? I can see nothing so proper and holy as unrelaxed play and frolic in this bower God has built for us.