This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.
O friendship! thou divinest alchemist, that man should ever profane thee!
A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.
It is a beautiful necessity of our nature to love something.
A woman often thinks she regrets the lover, when she only regrets the love.
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.
A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
Woman |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.
A fool has not material enough to be good.
A man who is always well satisfied with himself is seldom so with others, and others as little pleased with him.
A man of wit would often be much embarrassed without the company of fools.
Difficulty | Man | Understanding |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your life and will therefore furnish you with a basic sherry, but refuses to catch your eye.
Man |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
What, are you, crazy?' 'It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet', said Zaphod quietly. 'I know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.