This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Man and woman should look upon one another as reflections of the Divine.
Woman |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The relationship that exists between friends is the grandest of human loves. Friendly love is pure, because it is without compulsion. One freely chooses to love his friends; he is not bound by instinct. The love that manifests in friendship can exist between man and woman, woman and woman, man and man. But in the love of friendship, there is no sexual attraction. One must practice celibacy and absolutely forget sex if one wants to know divine love through friendship; then friendship nurtures the cultivation of divine love.
Cultivation | Love | Man | Practice | Relationship | Wants | Woman | Friendship | Friends |
Paul Géraldy, pen name of Paul Lefevre
It is the woman who chooses the man who will choose her.
Every moment in life is an act of faith… Every moment of searching is a moment of encounter… Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself… Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days… Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.
Paul Ehrlich, fully Paul Ralph Ehrlich
The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children.
At that moment it seemed to him that time stood still and the soul of the world surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke. The language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen. The omen he had been awaiting without even knowing he was for all his life. The omen he sought to find in his sheep and in his books. In the crystals and in the silence of the desert… It was the pure language of the world. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life. And that, with no need for words she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it, than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way never learned the universal language. Because when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you. Whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love and makes a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.
Dreams | Earth | Force | Future | Important | Knowing | Language | Love | Need | Parents | Past | People | Silence | Soul | Time | Understanding | Universe | Woman | Words | World | Understand |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
There was once a lady who was arrogant and proud. Determined to attain enlightenment, she asked all the authorities how to go about it. She was told, ‘Well, if you climb to the top of this very high mountain, you'll find a cave there. Sitting inside that cave is a wise old woman. She will tell you.’ Having endured great hardships, the lady finally found this cave. Sure enough, sitting there was a gentle spiritual-looking old woman in white clothing, who smiled beatifically. Overcome with awe and respect, the lady prostrated at the feet of this woman and said, I want to attain enlightenment. Show me how. This wise woman looked at her and asked sweetly, Are you sure you want to attain enlightenment? And the woman said, Of course I'm sure. Whereupon the smiling woman turned into a demon, stood up brandishing a great big stick, and started chasing her, saying, Now! Now! Now! For the rest of her life, that lady could never get away from the demon who was always saying, Now! Now--that's the key. Mindfulness trains us to be awake and alive, fully curious, about now.
Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings. Like her, these men, and the many others who sought her company, were all tormented by that same destructive feeling, the sense that no one else on the planet cared for them… Hunger, thirst is truly desire to be around a person. And from there, everything changes, men and women together into a play, but before that happens-the appeal has brought them closer together-it cannot be explained. The attraction was not the desire to touch; it is in a state of clarity and purity. When desire is still in a pure state, the man and woman feel love life, and they live every moment in a respectful, alert, always ready to honor and celebrate the blessings that are coming. When people feel like they will not rush, they will not rush to into action without thinking. They know that the inevitable will happen, what is real will always find a way to express itself. When that time comes, they will not hesitate, they will not miss the opportunity, they will not lose a single magic moment, because they appreciate the significance of each moment… I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.
Action | Blessings | Desire | Honor | Inevitable | Love | Magic | Man | Men | People | Sense | Time | Will | Woman |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The non-profit institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its product is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their product is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.
Phyllis Diller, born Phyllis Ada Driver
I'm the only woman who can walk in Central Park at night - and reduce the crime rate.
Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly
What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother… When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
We are asked to love and honor the life of every man and woman and to work with perseverance We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the culture. We must emphasize and give prominence to the primacy of human beings in the production process, the primary of human beings over things.
Death | Good | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Man | Woman | Work |
A woman is so made that she cannot give the tender passionate devotion of her whole nature save to the great conquering soul, stronger in its powers, though not in its aspirations, than her own, that can lead her forever & forever up and on. It is for her soul exactly as it is for her body. The strong divine soul of the man embracing hers with passionate love—so alone the precious germs within her soul can be quickened into life. And the time will come when man will understand that a woman’s soul is as dear and needful to his and as different from his as her body to his body. That was what happened to me when I had read for a few days, nay, hours, in your books. It was the divine soul embracing mine. I never before dreamed what love meant: not what life meant. Never was alive before—no words but those of “new birth” can hint the meaning of what then happened to me.
Devotion | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Nature | Soul | Time | Will | Woman | Words | Understand |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial.