This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them--it was that promise.
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
And the names he loved to hear have been carved for many a year on the tomb.
Eternity |
This therefore is a certain truth, that hell and death, curse and misery, can never cease or be removed from the creation till the will of the creature is again as it came from God and is only a Spirit of Love that wills nothing but goodness. All the whole fallen creation, stand it never so long, must groan and travail in pain, till every contrariety to the divine will is entirely taken from every creature. Which is only saying, that all the powers and properties of nature are a misery to themselves, can only work in disquiet and wrath, till the birth of the Son of God brings them under the dominion and power of the Spirit of Love.
Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Bless God, he went as soldiers, his musket on his breast— grant God, he charge the bravest of all the martial blest! Please God, might I behold him in epauletted white—I should not fear the foe then—I should not fear the fight!
Eternity | Immortality |
And then there are always clever people about to promise you that everything will be all right if only you put yourself out a bit... And you get carried away, you suffer so much from the things that exist that you ask for what can't ever exist. Now look at me, I was well away dreaming like a fool and seeing visions of a nice friendly life on good terms with everybody, and off I went, up into the clouds. And when you fall back into the mud it hurts a lot. No! None of it was true, none of those things we thought we could see existed at all. All that was really there was still more misery-- oh yes! as much of that as you like-- and bullets into the bargain!
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
It was not death, for I stood up, and all the dead lie down; it was not night, for all the bells put out their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl, nor fire, for just my marble feet could keep a chancel cool. And yet it tasted like them all; the figures I have seen set orderly, for burial, reminded me of mine, as if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame, and could not breathe without a key; and I was like midnight, some, when everything that ticked has stopped, and space stares, all around, or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, repeal the beating ground. But most like chaos,--stopless, cool, without a chance or spar,-- or even a report of land to justify despair.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
Duty | Earth | Eternity | Happy | Hell | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Peculiarity | Repose |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I am the only being whose doom no tongue would ask no eye would mourn I never caused a thought of gloom a smile of joy since I was born in secret pleasure — secret tears this changeful life has slipped away as friendless after eighteen years as lone as on my natal day.
Earth | Eternity | Happy | Hell | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Repose |
The wound religion receives from hypocrites is far more dangerous and incurable than that inflicted on it by the open and scandalous sinner. For religion is never brought into question by the enormous vices of an infamous person; all see and all abhor his sin. But when a man shall have his mouth full of piety and his hands full of wickedness, when he shall speak Scripture and live devilish, profess strictly and walk loosely, this lays a grievous stumbling–block in the way of others; and tempts them to think that all religion is but mockery, and that the professors of it are but hypocrites.
Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
Women are wise impromptu, fools on reflection.
Ecstasy | Eternity | Experience | Golden Rule | Rule | Speculation | Time | World | Golden Rule |