This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A work of art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament.
A new dynasty is never founded without a struggle. Blood makes good manure. It will be a good thing for the Rougon family to be founded on a massacre, like many illustrious families.
God | Kindness | Punishment | God |
Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.
Church | Perfection | Will |
If you get to silence the truth and bury her deep under the ground, it will grow, raised such explosive force that will sweep away everything in its path. -
Will |
I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world.
She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment.
The Empire was on the point of turning Paris into the bawdy house of Europe. The gang of fortune-seekers who had succeeded in stealing a throne required a reign of adventures, shady transactions, sold consciences, bought women, and rampant drunkenness.
Day |
The stench of the manure that Jean was turning had cheered him up a little. He adored its promise of fertility and was sniffing it with the relish of a man smelling a randy woman.
The vision that had emerged from the invisible was returning to the invisible. It was no more an appearance that was fading away, having created an illusion. All is but a dream. And, at the peak of happiness, Angélique had vanished, in the faint breath of a kiss.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
I have watched him as only a woman can watch a man upon whom her fate depends, but it has always been in vain.
'So,' she cried, 'you prefer your God to me? You think he is stronger than I am. You think he will love you better than I would? Ah, what a child you are! Do stop talking such twaddle. What we are going to do is go back to the garden together, and love each other, be happy and free, for that is life.
We have before us the ignoble spectacle of men who are sunken in debts and crimes being hailed as innocent, whereas the honor of a man whose life is spotless is being vilely attacked: A society that sinks to that level has fallen into decay.
Devotion | Dignity | Honor | Love | Nothing | Respect | Will | Respect |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
A soft Sea washed around the House a Sea of Summer Air and rose and fell the magic Planks that sailed without a care — for Captain was the Butterfly for Helmsman was the Bee and an entire universe for the delighted crew.
Dreams | Knowledge | Literature | Pleasure | Old |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
She died--this was the way she died; and when her breath was done, took up her simple wardrobe and started for the sun. Her little figure at the gate the angels must have spied, since I could never find her upon the mortal side.
He wept for truth which was dead, for heaven which was void. Beyond the marble walls and gleaming jeweled altars, the huge plaster Christ had no longer a single drop of blood in its veins.