This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.
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The truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The priest, realistically considered, is the most immoral of men, for he is always willing to sacrifice every other sort of good to the one good of his arcanum - the vague body of mysteries that he calls the truth.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No normal man ever fell in love after thirty when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.
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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Life implies constant activity, and the vital principle was accordingly regarded as something essentially active, constantly controlling and therefore interfering with physical tendencies towards disintegration of organic structure, and building up new organic structure in the process of nutrition and reproduction.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
The future will be no primrose path. It will have its own problems. Some will be the secular problems of the past, giant flowers of evil blossoming at last to their own destruction. Others will be wholly new.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
FRODO: I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark. There's nothing--no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes. SAM: Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. I can't carry the ring for you, but I can carry you! Come on!
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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Each day before the end of eve she sought her lover, nor would him leave, until the stars were dimmed, and day came glimmering eastward silver-grey. Then trembling-veiled she would appear, and dance before him, half in fear; there flitting just before his feet she gently chid with laughter sweet: 'Come! dance now, Beren, dance with me! For fain thy dancing I would see!
Absence | Business | Ideas | Innovation | Life | Life | Model | Universe | Will | World | Following | Business |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I thought up an ending for my book. ?And he lives happily ever after, till the end of his days.?