This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Happy the man who from the sea escapes the storm and finds harbor.
When you have gained a victory, do not push it too far; 'tis sufficient to let the company and your adversary see 'tis in your power but that you are too generous to make use of it.
Avoid disputes as much as possible. In order to appear easy and well-bred in conversation, you may assure yourself that it requires more wit, as well as more good humour, to improve than to contradict the notions of another: but if you are at any time obliged to enter on an argument, give your reasons with the utmost coolness and modesty, two things which scarce ever fail of making an impression on the hearers. Besides, if you are neither dogmatical, nor show either by your actions or words that you are full of yourself, all will the more heartily rejoice at your victory. Nay, should you be pinched in your argument, you may make your retreat with a very good grace. You were never positive, and are now glad to be better informed. This has made some approve the Socratic way of reasoning, where, while you scarce affirm anything, you can hardly be caught in an absurdity; and though possibly you are endeavouring to bring over another to your opinion, which is firmly fixed, you seem only to desire information from him.
Knowledge is not wisdom: cleverness is not, not without awareness of our death, not without recalling just how brief our flare is. He who overreaches will, in his overreaching, lose what he possesses, betray what he has now. That which is beyond us, which is greater than the human, the unattainably great, is for the mad, or for those who listen to the mad, and then believe them.
True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know.
Old menÂ’s prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
I can never understand how two men can write a book together; to me, that's like three people getting together to have a baby.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
She told me later that she had made a kind of note of me in her mind, as, scanning the shelf for a particular book, one will sometimes have one's attention caught by another, take it down, glance at the title page and saying I must read that, too, when I've the time, replace it and continue the search.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Here I am,' I thought, 'back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.
Heart |
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Old boy, said Grimes, you're in love. Nonsense! Smitten? said Grimes. No, no. The tender passion? No. Cupid's jolly little darts? No. Spring fancies, love's young dream? Nonsense! Not even a quickening of the pulse? No. A sweet despair? Certainly not. A trembling hope? No. A frisson? a Je ne sais quoi? Nothing of the sort. Liar! said Grimes.
The fair sex are so conscious to themselves that they have nothing in them which can deserve entirely to engross the whole man, that they heartily despise one who, to use their own expression, is always hanging at their apron-strings.