This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience.
Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.
Global | Good | History | Influence | Integration | Life | Life | Nothing | Order | Public | Taste | Learn |
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness.
A year ago, we all were united in the joy over having broken free of totalitarianism. Today we all are made somewhat nervous by the burden of freedom. Our society is still in a state of shock. This shock could have been expected, but none of us expected it to be so profound. The old system collapsed, and a new one so far has not been built. Our social life is marked by a subliminal uncertainty over what kind of system we are going to build, how to build it, and whether we are able to build it at all.
Competition | Danger | People | Power | Public | Rights | Rule | Suppression | Will | Danger |
In the outside world, all forms of intelligence, whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.
Atomic bomb | Opinion | People | Talking | Think |
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity, it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.
Appearance | Giving | Piety | Public | Old |
Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting. [Of London]
Awakening | Care | Man | Men | Prison | Public | Training | War |
Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have -- by disrupting that order -- a way of surprising.
Good | Instinct | Lying | People | Politics | Public | Temptation | Temptation |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Awareness of dying slander their lives.
Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
So that the wise men were obliged to rule themselves like lunatics to shun grim death, seeing the biggest maniac now was king.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Passions have taught men passion.
Opinion |
Let your holidays be associated with great public events, and they may be the life of patriotism as well as a source of relaxation and personal employment.
He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. - He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
Communism was a great system for making people equally poor - in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich.
Effort | Government | Public | Sense | Will | Worth | Government | Think |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
No, most of our political elite has not realized that the world is flat.