This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.
Death | Love | Nature | Understand |
Upanishads or The Upanishads NULL
When the mind is silent, beyond weakness or non-concentration, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind, the highest End. - Maitreya Upanishad
Upanishads or The Upanishads NULL
Well may he be content to live a hundred years who acts without attachment who works his work with earnestness, but without desire, not yearning for its fruits – he, and he alone. – Isha Upanishad
Death | Desire | Earth | Fulfillment | Heart | Life | Life | Mortal | Time | Will | Work |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
There are things that outweigh comfort, unless one is an old woman or a cat.
Death | Understand |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
Death | Understand |
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
The only serious rival to Pepys is Boswell, but Boswell is a snail without a shell. He trails through life unhoused and exclamatory, whereas Pepys is housed and sotto voce. Boswell is confessional before anything else, whereas, though he too tells all, Pepys is not; he records for the sensual pleasure of record. Boswell adores his damned soul to the point of tears and is in shame, ramshackle pursuit of father-figures who will offer salvation. Unlike Pepys, he has above all a conceit of his own peculiar genius. Pepys has no notion of genius. Where Pepys is an eager careerist, struck by the wonder of it, Boswell has no career; he has only a carousel, and it is odd that the careerist has a more genuine sense of pleasure than the Calvinist libertine.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
You have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough.
A belief may be larger than a fact. A faith that is over-defined is the very faith most likely to prove inadequate to the great moments of life.
Death |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The tempests of youth are mingled with days of brilliant sunshine.
Some men are born old, and some men never seem so. If we keep well and cheerful, we are always young and at last die in youth even when in years would count as old.
Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.
Death |
On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.