This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.
Balance |
And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.
Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus; home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
Study |
But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Ghost at I, v)
DOUGLAS: Now remains a sweet reversion— we may boldly spend, upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this. HOTSPUR: A rendezvous, a home to fly unto. King Henry IV, Part I, Act iv, Scene 1
Past |
First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
If a man's good for nothing else, he can at least teach philosophy.
There is at present in the world a cold reserve that keeps man at a distance from man. There is an art in the practice of which individuals communicate forever, without anyone telling his neighbor what estimate he forms of his attainments and character, how they ought to be employed, and how to be improved. There is a sort of domestic tactics, the object of which is to elude curiosity, and keep up the tenor of conversation, without the disclosure either of our feelings or opinions. The friend of justice will have no object more deeply at heart than the annihilation of this duplicity. The man whose heart overflows with kindness for his species will habituate himself to consider, in each successive occasion of social intercourse, how that occasion may be most beneficently improved. Among the topics to which he will be anxious to awaken attention, politics will occupy a principal share.
Art | Chance | Circumstances | Degeneracy | Discovery | History | Imagination | Important | Improvement | Literature | Observation | Past | Philosophy | Practice | Superstition | Will | Discovery | Art |
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
Lord, for the erring thought not into evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept.
The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
Absolute | Body | Conscience | Consciousness | Education | Energy | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Meaning | Miracles | Present | Religion | Science | World | God | Think |
There are moments of sentimental and mystical experience . . . that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come. But they come seldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection with them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons follow more the voice of the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the average results. Hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings; a discordancy which will be brought home to us acutely enough before these lectures end.