This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Don't dip your beard in the foam, Father! They cried to Thorin. It is long enough without watering it!
With art and knavery we live through half the year; with knavery and art we live through the other.
Generosity | Selfishness | Time | Unkindness |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Being a cult figure in one's own lifetime I am afraid is not at all pleasant. However I do not find that it tends to puff one up: in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense.
You don't go to heaven in a carriage.
Day | Existence | Golden Rule | Rule | Scripture | Story | Study | World | Golden Rule |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At least for a while the road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
Change | Children | Controversy | Labor | Public | Work | Worry | Child | Learn |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
A synopsis is a cold thing. You do it with the front of your mind. If you're going to stay with it, you never get quite the same magic as when you're going all out.
Ability | Change | Experience | Important | Qualities | Reading | Space | Time |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.
Compassion | Intolerance | Meaning | Means | People | Pity | Practice | Religion | Time | World |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief, that can rise to delight, that, thank Heaven, nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.
Ambiguity | Better | Compassion | Enemy | Failure | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Little | Means | People | Religion | Sense | Tradition | Understanding | Work | Failure |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from... the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviar, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.
Absolute | Compassion | Equity | Heart | Honor | Suffering | Work | World |
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Life implies constant activity, and the vital principle was accordingly regarded as something essentially active, constantly controlling and therefore interfering with physical tendencies towards disintegration of organic structure, and building up new organic structure in the process of nutrition and reproduction.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. 'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
Fraternity | Mind | World |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken; a slender Elf woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
Government | Rights | Security | Government | Guilty |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. 'I believed that you were a friend before the letter came,' he said, 'or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way the servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand
Success |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?