This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception—this ordinary contemplation, as the specialists call it—is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
I've always had two principles throughout all my life in motion-pictures: never do before the camera what you would not do at home and never do at home what you would not do before the camera.
You can also offer your prayers, obedience, and endurance of dryness to Our Lord, for the good of other souls, and then you have practiced intercession. Never mind if it all seems for the time very second-hand. The less you get out of it, the nearer it approaches to being something worth offering; and the humiliation of not being able to feel as devout as we want to be, is excellent for most of us. Use vocal prayer... very slowly, trying to realize the meaning with which it is charged and remember that... you are only a unit in the Chorus of the Church, so that the others will make good the shortcomings you cannot help.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.
Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen
Stronger than all the armies is an idea thatÂ’s time has comeÂ… The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Even on that convivial evening I could feel my host emanating little magnetic waves of social uneasiness, creating, rather, a pool of general embarrassment about himself in which he floated with log-like calm.
Better | Despondency | Pleasure | World |
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
It is easy, retrospectively, to endow one's youth with a false precocity or a false innocence; to tamper with the dates marking one's stature on the edge of the door.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Thus strategists hesitate over the map, the few pins and lines of coloured chalk, contemplating a change in the pins and lines, a matter of inches, which outside the room, out of sight of the studious officers, may engulf the past, present and future in ruin or life. She was a symbol to herself then, lacking the life of both child and woman; victory and defeat were changes of pin and line; she knew nothing of war.
Journey |
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Your colleague, Captain Grimes, has been convicted before me on evidence that leaves no possibility of his innocence - of a crime (I might almost call it a course of action) which I can neither understand nor excuse. I dare say I need not particularize.
Grace is God himself, his loving energy at work within his church and within our souls.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
A necklace of pearls on a white neck. We had lost the sense of discovery which had infused the anarchy of our first year. I began to settle down... the old house in the foreground, the rest of the world abandoned and forgotten; a world of its own of peace and love and beauty.
Books | Dirty | Literature |
The world today speaks a great deal about love, and it is sought by many. But the pure love of Christ differs greatly from what the world thinks of love. Charity never seeks selfish gratification. The pure love of Christ seeks only the eternal growth and joy of others.