Related Quotes

In the development and the maintenance of a living organism the coordination is very clear. The development of each part can be shown to be dependent on that of other parts, including the immediate environment; and the more closely development and maintenance are studied the more evident does this become. But the particular manner in which the parts and the environment influence one another is such that the specific structure and activities of the organism are maintained. They are unmistakably developed and maintained as a whole, and this is what we mean when we say that the organism lives a specific life. The conception of its life enables us to predict the general behavior of its parts so long as it is alive, and in particular it enables us to predict the general manner of its reproduction from a rudimentary part of the same organism? it is this co-ordinated maintenance that we call life.

Life | Life | Man |

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

Man |

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is. There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn't do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

Giving | Little | Nations | Size |

View Author

Ivan Krastev

[It's] difficult to engage people in politics when they believe that what really matters is where they personally stand.

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And in the darkness bind them.

Conversation | Man | Ugly | Will |

View Author

Itay Talgam

The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

View Author

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write.

View Author

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Behind that, there was something else at work, beyond any design of the ring maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.

View Author