This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
SCORN NOT THE LEAST - WHERE wards are weak and foes encount'ring strong, Where mightier do assault than do defend, The feebler part puts up enforcèd wrong, And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set, the little stars will shine. While pike doth range the seely tench doth fly, And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ; Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by, These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. There is a time even for the worm to creep, And suck the dew while all her foes do sleep. The merlin cannot ever soar on high, Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase ; The tender lark will find a time to fly, And fearful hare to run a quiet race : He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe ; The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, Yet he to heaven, to Hell did Dives go. We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May, Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.
Fate | God | Growth | Hell | Little | Quiet | Race | Speech | Time | Will | Fate | God |
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be.
Ron and Mary Hulnick, formally H. Ronald Hulnick and
One of the principles of spiritual psychology is that "healing is the application of loving to the parts inside that hurt." If ever there was a way to transform a life of quiet desperation into a life of effective peaceful living, healing inner hurts surely ranks right up there. As you resolve issues, you stand up in who you truly are and find purpose and meaning in sharing your unique contribution. The more issues you resolve, the more you evolve spiritually, the more peaceful and caring you become, and the more you contribute to the evolution of consciousness of the human species. As we say at USM, "Every time one person resolves one issue, all of humanity evolves." Meaning is a natural and automatic by-product of a life filled with acts of love. If you want to live a life filled with meaning, start expressing from your essential loving nature. Start singing your song.
Consciousness | Desperation | Evolution | Humanity | Life | Life | Meaning | Principles | Psychology | Purpose | Purpose | Quiet | Right | Time | Unique |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
MAN'S CIVIL WAR - MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven And quiet nestle in the sky, Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore Without remove at anchor lie. But mounting thoughts are halèd down With heavy poise of mortal load, And blustring storms deny my ship In Virtue's haven secure abode. When inward eye to heavenly sights Doth draw my longing heart's desire, The world with jesses of delights Would to her perch my thoughts retire, Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, Though Reason stiffly do repine ; Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves, And overrules the captive will ; Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, They draw the wit their wish to fill. Need craves consent of soul to sense, Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; Hard hap where halves must disagree, Or truce halves the whole betray ! O cruel fight ! where fighting friend With love doth kill a favoring foe, Where peace with sense is war with God, And self-delight the seed of woe ! Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; O fickle sense ! beware her gin, Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !
Fighting | Joy | Kill | Longing | Love | Mortal | Peace | Quiet | Reason | Sense | Soul | Taste | War | Will | Wisdom | Wit | Woe | World |
Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller
Fame is a bulwark against indignity. It proclaims our worth to anyone tempted to put us down and threatens retaliation if they persist. It even helps to quiet the critical voices we have internalized--of parents, classmates, and teachers--that echo in our heads long after these naysayers are gone.
Quiet | Retaliation | Worth |
Samuel J. Hazo, fully Samuel John Hazo
Because poetry is the language of felt thought and utterance… of admissions and oaths as sacred as life itself, it is evident in an economy by its absence. As long as people are perceived in economic terms alone, poetry (and all the other arts, for that matter) will be regarded as ornamental or irrelevant or simply dispensable… the disregard of poetry will be as fatal to their spiritual lives as the deprivation of oxygen would be to their physical lives. Why? Because poetry tells us who we are, what our surroundings mean to us, and what waits to be discovered beneath the apparent.…It is the language of the heart…It is at the same time the language of the senses.
Death | Faith | Laughter | Life | Life | Nothing | Promise | Quiet | Time | Waiting | War | Work | Worth | Learn |
For why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind? The air is cut away before, And closes from behind... And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald... And a good south wind sprung up behind, The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends that plague thus thee!-- Why look'st thou so?"--"With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross."
Quiet |
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
A real artist may create his picture in a lonely desert... gods look over his shoulder; he creates in their company. What does he care whether or not anybody admires his picture?
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
No one knows what makes the soul wake up so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze has blown the veil from the face of God.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more silent.' Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.
Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
The spirit of humility is sweeter than honey, and those who nourish themselves with this honey produce sweet fruit.
Contemplation | Heart | Mercy | Providence | Quiet | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness.
Blessings | Desire | God | Heart | Knowledge | Means | Meditation | Noise | Nothing | Pleasure | Quiet | Sense | Silence | Soul | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Work | God | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
As the soul becomes purged and purified by means of this fire of love, it becomes ever more enkindled in love. This enkindling of love is not always felt by the soul, but only at times when contemplation assails it less vehemently.
Experience | Freedom | God | Good | Imagination | Quiet | Reason | Soul | Spirit | Strength | Time | God |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
On that day God will not judge us about psalmody, nor for the neglect of prayer, but because by abandoning them, we have opened our door to the demons.