This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality.
Man |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying Open! was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to beat war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror,but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means.It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Professor Richard N. Current fusses, not irrelevantly, about the propriety of fictionalising actual political figures. I also fuss about this. But he has fallen prey to the scholar-squirrel's delusion that there is a final Truth revealed only to the tenured few in their footnote maze; in this he is simply naïve.
Advice | Age | Opportunity | Television |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
I did think of marrying once, and I explained it on ‘The Dick Cavett Show’ in 1968. It was right after those debates with Bill Buckley during the conventions. I told Cavett that I once planned to marry Joanne Woodward. ‘What went wrong?’ Cavett asked. I told him that Joanne met Paul Newman and I met Bill Buckley.
Love | Understand |
Where the power denies, in blatant forms but also with occult means, true freedom, popping up every so inspired men like Andrei Sakharov and Marco Pannellawho follow the spiritual position more difficult to assume that a victim in front of his oppressor: the refusal passive . Alone and unarmed, they also speak to us.
The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors; which should, if possible, be so contrived that he may perceive our advice is given him not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches, therefore, of a friend should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.
None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.
Play |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Immortality is the condition of a dead man who doesn't believe he is dead.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.
Business | Children | Debt | Extreme | Important | Question | Slavery | Business | Understand |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
But it may be the hard part of a friend to rebuke a friend's folly.
Acceptance | Desire | Men | Parents | Resignation |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
As she passed the doors she turned and looked back. Grave and thoughtful was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity in her eyes. Very fair was her face, and her long hair was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings. Thus Aragorn for the first time in the full light of day beheld Eowyn, Lady of Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. And she now as suddenly aware of him: tall heir of kings, wise with many winters, grey-cloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt. For a moment still as stone she stood, then turning swiftly she was gone.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
Men |