This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia.
Discovery | Freedom | Man | Personality | Society | Work | Society | Discovery |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
To see her is a picture- to hear her is a tune- to know her an Intemperance as innocent as June- to know her not-Affliction- to own her for a Friend a warmth as near as if the Sun were shining in your Hand.
Will |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Although he loved her with all the strength of his miserable being, not love as much in eighty years as I do in a day
Soul |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him, and all the world, if you were my wife-so I'd rather you were that!' 'No! I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely. 'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers, and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you, as he is of me.
Prayer |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul.
Will |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
You are my son, then, I'll tell you' and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed.
Desire |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
The bustle in a house the morning after death is solemnest of industries enacted upon earth,-- the sweeping up the heart, and putting love away we shall not want to use again until eternity
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Ere this speech ended, I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further.â€
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I know he has a bad nature,' said Catherine; 'he's your son. But I'm glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me and for that reason I love him. Mr Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery! You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you, when you die! I wouldn't be you!
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I never openly declared my love, but if looks could speak, the dumbest could have noted that the trial had me upset.
Will |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose - tolerably sober; not going to bed mad at six o'clock, and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.
Atheism... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.
Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |
Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.
Bigotry | Economics | Future | God | Kill | Love | Man | Means | Men | Past | Position | Religion | Will | Worth | God |
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Oh! dreadful is the check - intense the agony - / When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; when the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; / The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes.
Let us not overlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us.
No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal!
Ignorance | Inhumanity | Man | Means | Protest | Revolution | Spirit | System | Wrong |