This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Meditation - If I am aware of the nature of my reactions, and movement of my reactions, naturally that awareness will result in freedom from the reaction. I cannot stop the reaction, because the reactions have been rooted in the sub-conscious, in the unconscious. I cannot prevent, I cannot renounce, I cannot check them. But if I am aware, simultaneously of the objective challenge, the subjective reactions and the causes of those reactions, then it results in freedom. Then the momentum of reaction will not carry me over with it, but I will be ahead of the reactions; I will not be a victim of my reaction, but I will see them as I see the objective challenge. That for me is meditation. All-inclusive attention while moving in life. Meditation does not involve any mental activity at all." - Vimala Thakar
"All right Mister, let me tell you what winning means... you're willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else." - Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumns trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labor, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Kay Arr, said the nursemaid, and Septimus heard her say Kay Arr close to his ear, deeply, softly, like a mellow organ, but with a roughness in her voice like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up into his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke. A marvelous discovery indeed - that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life!" - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Instead of blaming the outer world examine the inner world." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"The mercy we need is self-mercy, which consists of ceasing to behave badly while justifying it." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"There are three types of knowledge: Knowledge of matter-energy; knowledge of mental energy; and knowledge of cosmic energy." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Temperance is to the body what religion is to the soul, the foundation and source of health and strength and peace." - Tryon Edwards
"We are to beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building up of private power. United alike in the conception of our duty and in the high resolve to perform it in the face of all men, let us dedicate ourselves to the great task to which we must now set our hand. For myself I beg your tolerance, your countenance and your united aid. The shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled, and we shall walk with the light all about us if we be but true to ourselves—to ourselves as we have wished to be known in the counsels of the world and in the thought of all those who love liberty and justice and the right exalted." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"In this room, the salamander was squashed between the pages of the rhyming dictionary, thereby changing poetry forever. Here, Salome walked around with a big red fish held high up over her head. Old Father spanked her with a ballet slipper, sending her to bed without milk or honey. Dance was changed in this room, too." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"On the poor use of grammar it's a matter of usage. If a house is off-plumb and rickety and lets in the wind, you blame the mason, not the bricks. Our words are up to the job. It's our syntax that's limiting." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, Scene 4" - William Shakespeare
"A man can die but once, we owe God a death. King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2." - William Shakespeare
"A young man married is a man that 's marr'd. All 's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3." - William Shakespeare
"For there is such a thing as a broken spirit." - William Godwin
"The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear!" - William Shakespeare
"The hanging gate, of something like trelliswork, was propped on a pole, and he could see that the house was tiny and flimsy. He felt a little sorry for the occupants of such a place--and then asked himself who in this world had a temporary shelter." - Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki
"Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day." - William Shakespeare
"Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"The appreciation of pleasure can be the anchor of humanity." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"It was not death, for I stood up, and all the dead lie down; it was not night, for all the bells put out their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl, nor fire, for just my marble feet could keep a chancel cool. And yet it tasted like them all; the figures I have seen set orderly, for burial, reminded me of mine, as if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame, and could not breathe without a key; and I was like midnight, some, when everything that ticked has stopped, and space stares, all around, or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, repeal the beating ground. But most like chaos,--stopless, cool, without a chance or spar,-- or even a report of land to justify despair." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
"Those who are beloved cannot die, because love means immortality." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
"Afraid? No! he replied. I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reached - and soon - because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfillment. My confessions have not reviewed me; but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humor which I show. Oh God! It is a long fight; I wish it were over!" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"And you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle? Here! and here! replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and another on her breast: in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"I used to draw a comparison between him, and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex myself to explain satisfactorily, why their conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances. They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children; and I could not see how they shouldn't both have taken the same road, for good or evil. But, I thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man. When his ship struck, the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot, and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel. Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he trusted God; and God comforted him. One hoped, and the other despaired; they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make." - Emmet Fox
"I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"No animal has more liberty than the cat, but it buries the mess it makes. The cat is the best anarchist." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...I will do my best with what is here." - Eugene Peterson
"The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction." - Eugene Peterson
"For chance fights ever on the side of the prudent." - Euripedes NULL
"For the good, when praised, feel something of disgust, if to excess commended." - Euripedes NULL
"The greatest pleasure of life is love." - Euripedes NULL
"Grace is God himself, his loving energy at work within his church and within our souls." - Evelyn Underhill
"Two movements merge in the real act of communion. First, the creature's profound sense of need, of incompleteness: its steadfast desire... Next, a humble and loving acceptance of God's answer to that prayer of desire, however startling, disappointing, and unappetizing it may be." - Evelyn Underhill
"Perhaps all our lovers are merely hints and symbols; vagabond languages scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have trampled before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond each other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
"The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
"A man may be truly religious without imagining God as good at all, and he may be good without believing that there is any moral order in the universe or even that God exists. Religion does not necessarily make men better citizens, whether of their neighborhoods or of the world." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken