This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
When the danger is past God is cheated.
Absence | Atheism | Awareness | Awe | Cause | Fortune | Good | Gratitude | Ideas | Important | Insight | Language | Life | Life | Majority | Man | Myth | Need | Nothing | Object | Power | Prosperity | Question | Reality | Religion | Reputation | Reverence | Right | Sacred | Sense | Truth | Understanding | World | Awareness | Understand |
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
In the development and the maintenance of a living organism the coordination is very clear. The development of each part can be shown to be dependent on that of other parts, including the immediate environment; and the more closely development and maintenance are studied the more evident does this become. But the particular manner in which the parts and the environment influence one another is such that the specific structure and activities of the organism are maintained. They are unmistakably developed and maintained as a whole, and this is what we mean when we say that the organism lives a specific life. The conception of its life enables us to predict the general behavior of its parts so long as it is alive, and in particular it enables us to predict the general manner of its reproduction from a rudimentary part of the same organism? it is this co-ordinated maintenance that we call life.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.
Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.
Appreciation | Art | Faith | Heart | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Mind | People | Religion | Appreciation | Art |
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. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
From the fact that there are 400,000 species of beetles on this planet, but only 8,000 species of mammals, he [Haldane] concluded that the Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles.
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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.
Experience | God | Human nature | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | God |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
A real taste for fairy-stories was wakened by philology on the threshold of manhood, and quickened to full life by war.
Belief | Uncertainty | Wrong |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
Change | Freedom | Government | Life | Life | Government |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of not having any faces.
Spirituality | Wrong |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Being a cult figure in one's own lifetime I am afraid is not at all pleasant. However I do not find that it tends to puff one up: in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief, that can rise to delight, that, thank Heaven, nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.
Ambiguity | Better | Compassion | Enemy | Failure | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Little | Means | People | Religion | Sense | Tradition | Understanding | Work | Failure |