This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size. The extreme socialists desire to run every nation as a single business concern. I do not suppose that Henry Ford would find much difficulty in running Andorra or Luxembourg on a socialistic basis. He has already more men on his pay-roll than their population. It is conceivable that a syndicate of Fords, if we could find them, would make Belgium Ltd. or Denmark Inc. pay their way. But while nationalization of certain industries is an obvious possibility in the largest of states, I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Capitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
My final word, before I'm done, is 'Cancer can be rather fun'? provided one confronts the tumor with a sufficient sense of humor. I know that cancer often kills, but so do cars and sleeping pills; and it can hurt till one sweats, so can bad teeth and unpaid debts. A spot of laughter, I am sure, often accelerates one's cure; so let us patients do our bit to help the surgeons make us fit.
Cause |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes Luke a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowdilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime.
Action | Global | Present | Property | Sense | System | Thought | Will | Thought |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Any fool can be fussy and rid himself of energy all over the place, but a man has to have something in him before he can settle down to do nothing.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
I have tried to show why I believe that the biologist is the most romantic figure on earth at the present day. At first sight he seems to be just a poor little scrubby underpaid man, groping blindly amid the mazes of the ultra-microscopic, engaging in bitter and lifelong quarrels over the nephridia of flatworms, waking perhaps one morning to find that someone whose name he has never heard has demolished by a few crucial experiments the work which he had hoped would render him immortal.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith.
Joy | Light | Mind | Sense | Thinking | Thought | Time | Thought |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-d–r was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung. From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazg–l, the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.
Good |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of And£ril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. 'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, D£nadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!
Control | Enough | Improvement | Labor | Money | People | Reason | Responsibility | Slavery | Child | Think |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
How do you move on? You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. Also many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of N£menor and the flight of Elendil.