This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
William (Morley Punshon) McFee
Responsibility's like a string we can only see the middle of. Both ends are out of sight.
Fame | Inevitable | Obscurity | Obscurity |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
What did you say, Arthur? I said, how the hell did you get here? I was a row of dots flowing randomly through the Universe. Have you met Thor? He makes thunder. Hello, said Arthur. I expect that must be very interesting. Hi, said Thor, it is.
The faults of the soul are like body injuries: some care we take to heal, the scar still looks, and they are in danger at any time to reopen.
It is the veiled angel of sorrow who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease and security, and, in the vanishing of these dear objects, indicates the true home of our affections and our peace.
Fame | Man | Reputation |
You may speak like the Lion of Speech [Manjushri], but unless you take to heart the primordially pure nature of resounding emptiness, that will not prevent the ripening of karma. So take to heart the primordially pure nature of empty resounding!
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
On the third day after the birth of a girl the ancients observed three customs: first to place the baby below the bed; second to give her a potsherd [a piece of broken pottery] with which to play; and third to announce her birth to her ancestors by an offering. Now to lay the baby below the bed plainly indicated that she is lowly and weak, and should regard it as her primary duty to humble herself before others. To give her potsherds with which to play indubitably signified that she should practice labor and consider it her primary duty to be industrious. To announce her birth before her ancestors clearly meant that she ought to esteem as her primary duty the continuation of the observance of worship in the home.
Beauty | Defects | Duty | Excellence | Fame | Father | Glory | Husband | Praise | Reputation | Will | Excellence | Friendship | Beauty |
She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd; she is a woman, therefore may be won; she is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd. What, man! more water glideth by the mill than wots the miller of; and easy it is of a cut loaf to steal a shive.
One of the problems of contemporary culture is that life moves at such a quick pace, we usually don't give ourselves time to feel and listen deeply. You may have to take deliberate action to nurture the soul. If you want to increase your soul's bank account, you may have to seek out the unfamiliar and do things that at first could feel uncomfortable. Give yourself time as you experiment. How will you know if you're on the right track? I like Rumi's counsel: 'When you do something from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.'
Age | Better | Cause | Earth | Enlightenment | Fame | Famous | Fortune | Good | Illusion | Kill | Labor | Light | Man | Mind | Money | People | Present | Problems | Shame | Terrorism | Work | Worry | Instruction | Understand |
Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.
Fame |
The conscious discovery by you that you have this Power within you, and your determination to make use of it, is the birth of the child. And it is easy to see how very apt the symbol is, for the infant that is born in consciousness is just such a weak, feeble entity as any new-born child, and it calls for the same careful nursing and guarding that any infant does in its earliest days. After a time, however, as the weeks go by, the child grows stronger and bigger, until a time comes when it can well take care of itself; and then it grows and grows in wisdom and stature until, no longer leaning on the mother’s care, the child, now arrived at man’s estate, turns the tables, and repays its debt by taking over the care of its mother. So your ability to contact the mystic Power within yourself, frail and feeble at first, will gradually develop until you find yourself permitting that Power to take your whole life into its care.
Battle | Business | Cause | Change | Character | Day | Destiny | Fame | God | Grief | Hero | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mercy | Need | Obscurity | Obscurity | Problems | Qualities | Success | Trifles | Weakness | Wealth | Will | Loss | Business | God |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
Don't tell me about the scientific advances of the twentieth century. So men are planning a trip to the moon. So computers run every large industry in America. So body organs are being transplanted like perennials. Big deal! You show me a washer that will launder a pair of socks and return them to you as a pair, and I'll light a firecracker.
Fame |
There is evidence that the faculty of reflection will appear as soon as our senses begin to develop, and it is equally true that we have the use of the senses from an early age, just because at an early age we began to reflect.
Distinguish | Error | Fame | Impression | Mistake | Perception |
The dissimilarity that arose between poetic style and common language, opened a middle way from which eloquence derived its origin, and from which it sometimes deviated to draw near to the style of poetry, and sometimes to resemble common conversation. From the latter it differs only as it rejects all sorts of expressions that have not a sufficient dignity, and from the former only because it is not subject to the same measure, and according to the different character of languages, it is not allowed some particular figures and phrases which are admitted in poetry. In other respects these two arts are sometimes confounded in such a manner, that it.is no longer possible to distinguish them.
Fame |
What we have been saying in regard to imagination and memory, must be applied to contemplation, according as it is referred to either. If it be made to consist in retaining the perceptions; before the use of instituted signs it has only a habit which does not depend on us: but it has none at all, if it be made to consist in preserving the signs themselves.
Design | Fame | Knowledge | Mankind | Memory | Music | Poetry | Religion | Time | Wants |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.
She fancied she saw him opposite at his window; then all grew confused: clouds passed before her, it seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz beneath the light of the lustres on the arm of the Vicomte, and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all this time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand caught in a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which invaded her soul.
Fame |