This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.
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The pleasures that he had promised himself did not come to him; and when he had exhausted a circulating library, gone over the collections in the Louvre, and been at the theatre a great many nights in succession, he sank into the lowest depths of idleness.
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When she went to confession, she invented little sins in order that she might stay there longer, kneeling in the shadow, her hands joined, her face against the grating beneath the whispering of the priest. The comparisons of betrothed, husband, celestial lover, and eternal marriage, that recur in sermons, stirred within her soul depths of unexpected sweetness.
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Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.
It is my contention that civil disobediences are nothing but the latest form of voluntary association, and that they are thus quite in tune with the oldest traditions of the country.
The relative meaning of two physical facts in a emotionally controlled relation always creates the phenomenon of a third fact of a higher order, just as two musical sounds, heard simultaneously create the phenomenon of a third, fourth or fifth. The nature of this higher third is non-physical. In a sense it is magic. Each such phenomenon always overshadows the material qualities and the limited meaning of the basic factors from which it has sprung. For this reason Art expresses the highest quality of the spirit when it is surreal in nature; or, in terms of the visual arts, when it is of a surreal plastic nature.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Deserves it I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
Anti-semitism | Cause | Object | Race |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang,' it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In account after account of exorcisms the demonic voices will propound nihilism of one variety or another.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
It matters little who is the enemy, if we cannot beat off his attack.
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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In one thing you have not changed, dear friend,
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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
If thou hadst thy will what wouldst thou reserve? said Manwe. Of all thy realm what dost thou hold dearest? All have their worth, said Yavanna, and each contributes to the worth of the others. But the kelvar can flee or defend themselves, whereas the olvar that grow cannot. And among these I hold trees dear. Long in the growing, swift shall they be in the felling, and unless they pay toll with fruit upon their bough little mourned in their passing. So I see in my thought, would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!