This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We must understand that God is the measure of all reality and propriety, understand that eternity exists first and then time, and therefore the future first and then the present, as surely as the Creature exists first and then the creature.
Eternity | Future | God | Present | Reality | Time | God | Understand |
Shall I say: Creator, Sustainer, Pardoner, Near One, Distant One, Incomprehensible One, God both of flowers and stars, God of the gentle wind and of terrible battles, Wisdom, Power, Loyalty and Truthfulness, Eternity and Infinity, you the All-Merciful, you the Just One, you Love itself?
Eternity | God | Love | Loyalty | Loyalty | Power | Wisdom | God |
History is the display of the supposed advantages of power and intelligence which some men possess over others, of the struggle for existence hypocritically described by ideologists as the struggle for justice and freedom, of the ebb and flow of old and new forms of human righteousness, each vying with the rest in the solemnity and triviality... Yet one drop of eternity is of greater weight than a vast ocean of finite things.
Display | Eternity | Existence | Freedom | History | Intelligence | Justice | Men | Power | Rest | Righteousness | Struggle | Old |
“Time restores all things.” Wrong! Time restores many things, but eternity restores all.
Marcel Marceau, born Marcel Mangel
Earthly life is an eternal miracle. In a moment of grace, we can grasp eternity in the palm of our hand. This is the gift given to creative individuals who can identify with the mysteries of life through art. It is a divine gift, this spirit of humanity. It is the fight for light over shadow.
Art | Eternal | Eternity | Grace | Humanity | Life | Life | Light | Spirit |
Marcel Marceau, born Marcel Mangel
Life’s meaning rests in the eye of the beholder and in our constant desire to approach perfection. Life is so immense and complex that there is no one truth, only the rule of destiny... We do not choose life; life chooses us. Yet we try to follow our destiny, our passion our drive. We must live every minute as if it is our first and our last... The meaning of life lies in our desire to help others... Earthly life is an eternal miracle. In a moment of grace, we can grasp eternity in the palm of our hand.
Desire | Destiny | Eternal | Eternity | Grace | Life | Life | Meaning | Passion | Perfection | Rule | Truth |
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
The soul has nothing in common with anything else. It is unconscious of the yesterday or the day before, and of tomorrow and the day after, for in eternity there is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence, and is at this moment, and as it will be after death.
Either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.
Change | Death | Eternity | Men | Nature | Soul | Unconsciousness | World |
We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the richness of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence.
Angels | Eternity | Omnipresence | Soul |
Richard Jefferies, fully John Richard Jefferies
It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly floats in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come, it is now. Now is the eternity; now is the immortal life. Here this moment, by this tumulus, on earth, now; I exist in it.
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animal-cule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity – all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.
Appetite | Doctrine | Eternity | God | Life | Life | Little | Omnipresence | Taste | World | God |
Love is a circle that doth restless move in the same sweet eternity of love.
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
To Zen, time and eternity are one.
William Jones, fully Sir William Jones of Nayland, aka Trinity Jones
Voices of the glorified urge us onward. they who have passed from the semblances of time to the realities of eternity call upon us to advance. The rest that awaits us invites us forward. We do not pine for our rest before God wills it. We long for no inglorious rest. We are thankful rather for the invaluable training of difficulty, the loving discipline of danger and strife. Yet in the midst of it all the prospect of rest invites us heavenward. Through all, and above all, God cries, “Go forward!” “Come up higher.”
Danger | Difficulty | Discipline | Eternity | God | Rest | Time | Training | Wills | Danger | God |
Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life’s parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it reserves it by giving it the abolute dimension – “As unto himself eternity changes him at last.” Death does away with time.
Age | Death | Destiny | Eternity | Giving | Life | Life | Old age | Time | Old |