This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in color and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At length the Lady Galadriel released them from her eyes, and she smiled. ?Do not let your hearts be troubled,? she said. ?Tonight you shall sleep in peace.? Then they sighed and felt suddenly weary, as those who have been questioned long and deeply, though no words had been spoken openly.
Effort | Fighting | Organization | People | Public | Rights | Slavery | Child |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes Luke a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowdilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime.
Action | Global | Present | Property | Sense | System | Thought | Will | Thought |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.
Imagination | Knowledge | Light | Technology | Thinking |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Any fool can be fussy and rid himself of energy all over the place, but a man has to have something in him before he can settle down to do nothing.
Your former enemies might cunningly take revenge on you just out of spite. Trust not a reconciled enemy more than an open foe.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith.
Joy | Light | Mind | Sense | Thinking | Thought | Time | Thought |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of And£ril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. 'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, D£nadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!
Control | Enough | Improvement | Labor | Money | People | Reason | Responsibility | Slavery | Child | Think |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I have not been nourished by English Literature... for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart (or heart and head together). I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer... I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright color, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ?mad?. . . but I don?t believe I am... I set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own.
Light |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
He led the way in under the huge branches of the trees. Old beyond guessing, they seemed. Great trailing beards of lichen hung from them, blowing and swaying in the breeze. Out of the shadows, the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't 0even be here. But we are.It's like in the great stories, Mister Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they we're. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Elves and Dragons Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you.
Will |