This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
There are however several publics; amongst whom it is not impossible to find some people who do not conceive of pleasure without pain, who do not like to enjoy themselves without paying, and who are not happy if their happiness is not in some part their own contrivance through which they wish to realize what it costs them.
Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
I am now going to make an admission. I confess, I agree, that all these good people who protested, who laughed, who did not perceive what we perceived, were in a quite legitimate position. Their opinion was quite in order. One must not be afraid to say that the kingdom of letters is only a province of the vast empire of entertainment. One picks up a book, one puts it aside; and even when one cannot put it down one very well understands that this interest is related to the facility of pleasure. That is to say that every effort of a creator of beauty or of fantasy should be bent, by the very essence of his work, on contriving for the public pleasure which demands no effort, or almost none. It is through the public that he should deduce what touches, moves, soothes, animates or enchants the public.
Beauty | Effort | Good | Opinion | People | Pleasure | Public | Beauty | Afraid |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is.
Joy goes against the foundations of mathematics: it multiplies when we divide… Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments — but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken… Join with those who sing, tell stories, talk pleasure in life, and have joy in their eyes, because joy is contagious, and can prevent others from becoming paralyzed by depression, loneliness and difficulties… Judging oneself to be inferior to other people was one of the worst acts of pride because it was the most destructive.
Change | Day | Experience | Faith | Journey | Joy | Loneliness | Magic | People | Pleasure | Pride | Search | Will |
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
Joy has something within itself which is beyond joy and sorrow. This something is called blessedness... It preserves in itself its opposite, sorrow. It provides the foundation for happiness and pleasure. It is present in all levels of man’s striving for fulfillment. It consecrates and directs them. It does not diminish or weaken them. It does not take away the risks and dangers of the joy of life. It makes the joy of life possible in pleasure and pain, in happiness and unhappiness, in ecstasy and sorrow. Where there is joy, there is fulfillment. And where there is fulfillment, there is joy. In fulfillment and joy the inner aim of life, the meaning of creation, and the end of salvation are attained.
Ecstasy | Fulfillment | Joy | Life | Life | Meaning | Pleasure | Present | Salvation | Happiness |
Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective ways of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone is your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not the other?... Each of us carries within it something unknown. But, when it floats to the surface, be capable of miracles... Each of us is unique, has special qualities, and his instincts, and the kinds of pleasure to enjoy, and a desire to run adventures. Is that society imposes on us always in the way of collective behavior, does not stop people asking them to behave in this way.
Desire | Life | Life | People | Pleasure | Society | Wonder | Society |
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
To seek pleasure for the sake of pleasure is to avoid reality, the reality of other beings and the reality of ourselves. But only the fulfillment of what we really are can give us joy. Joy is nothing else than the awareness of our being fulfilled in our true being, in our personal center. And this fulfillment is possible only if we unite ourselves with what others really are. It is reality that gives joy and reality alone.
Awareness | Fulfillment | Joy | Nothing | Pleasure | Reality | Awareness |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
There is a common misunderstanding among the human beings who have ever been born on earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable. You see this even in insects and animals and birds. All of us are the same. A much more interesting, kind and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our curiosity is bitter or sweet. To lead to a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is. If we are committed to comfort at any cost, as soon as we come up against the least edge of pain, we’re going to run; we’ll never know what’s beyond that particular barrier or wall or fearful thing.
Comfort | Curiosity | Earth | Life | Life | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Prejudice | World |
Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.
Pleasure |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.
Pleasure |
Dream and love are just words - until you decide to experience them… Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people - preferably our parents, our spouses or our children - for our failure to realize our dreams… Dreams are the language of God… Dreams nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body. The pleasure of the search and of adventure feeds our dreams… Hurry up: your dreams are waiting for you, but they will not wait forever.
Adventure | Blame | Children | Dreams | Experience | Failure | Hurry | Language | Love | People | Pleasure | Search | Soul | Waiting | Will | Words | Failure |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is.
Inquisitiveness | Life | Life | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Prejudice | World |
Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you… Freedom continues to be the thing I prize most in the world. Of course, this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done and which I will not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked their forgiveness, when I realized that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don’t regret the painful times; I bear my scars like medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears… Freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed with tears… Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me… Absolute freedom does not exist: there is only the freedom to choose something from that moment onwards to feel bound by its own decision.
Ability | Absence | Absolute | Body | Force | Freedom | Lust | Pleasure | Regret | Smile | Will |
I want and need to like myself again; I have to convince myself that I’m capable of taking my own decision… I want to be someone capable of seeing the unseen faces, of seeing those who do not seek fame or glory who silently fulfill the role life has given them. I want to be able to do this because the most important things, those that shape our existence, are precisely the ones that never show their faces… I wanted to... feel hatred and love, despair and tedium -- all those simple, yet foolish things that make up everyday life but that give pleasure to your existence. If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they are crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to… I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.
Day | Despair | Fame | Glory | Important | Life | Life | Need | People | Pleasure |
Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
Despair | Melancholy | Pleasure | Sorrow | Sympathy | Tragedy |
Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.
Pleasure |
The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
True Love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, Imagination! which from earth and sky, And from the depths of human phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The Universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow Of its reverberated lightning. Bid them love each other and be blest: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's. Mind from its object differs most in this: Evil from good; misery from happiness; The baser from the nobler; the impure And frail, from what is clear and must endure. If you divide suffering and dross, you may Diminish till it is consumed away; If you divide pleasure and love and thought, Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not How much, while any yet remains unshared, Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared: This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law By which those live, to whom this world of life Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife Tills for the promise of a later birth The wilderness of this Elysian earth.
Birth | Earth | Eternal | Evil | Gold | Law | Life | Life | Light | Love | Mind | Object | Pleasure | Promise | Sorrow | Suffering | Truth | Universe | World |
Forgiveness hides a pleasure that you can't get back from revenge.
Pleasure |