This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
A man is a form of life that dreams in order to act and acts in order to dream.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
Look, stranger, on this island now the leaping light for your delight discovers, stand stable here and silent be, that through the channels of the ear may wander like a river the swaying sound of the sea.
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W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too ''personal'' style.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
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We could lose, and I think we need to face that. I was speaking in Nebraska the other day and a very intelligent man came up afterward and said in a very kind and intelligent way, Of course you know you may be fighting a losing battle. And I answered, I’ve known for 30 years that I may be fighting a losing battle. The question to me is not whether I’m going to win or not, but whether I’m going to fight or not.
Capital punishment | Hypocrisy | Life | Life | Opposition | Public | Punishment | Society | Society | Think |
They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways.
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W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
Out of the air a voice without a face proved by statistics that some cause was just in tones as dry and level as the place: no one was cheered and nothing was discussed.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
Warm are the still and lucky miles, white shores of longing stretch away, a light of recognition fills the whole great day, and bright the tiny world of lovers' arms. Silence invades the breathing wood where drowsy limbs a treasure keep, now greenly falls the learned shade across the sleeping brows and stirs their secret to a smile. Restored! Returned! The lost are borne on seas of shipwreck home at last: see! In a fire of praising burns the dry dumb past, and we our life-day long shall part no more.
W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield
The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
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W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
Change | Children | Church | Courage | Events | Men | Parents | Power | Public | Religion | Revolution | Time | Will | World | Learn |
W. Eugene Smith, fully William Eugene Smith
The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.
Influence | Public | Responsibility | Thinking | Work |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief: either to perish, or to catch up with the advanced countries and outdistance them, too, in economic matters.
Vivienne Westwood, born Vivienne Isabel Swire
Even though it was the 70s, we found old stocks of clothes that had never been worn from the 50s and took them apart. I started to teach myself how to make clothes from that kind of formula.
Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL
Perhaps, to the uninformed, it may appear unaccountable that a man should be able to retain in his memory such a variety of learning; but the close alliance with each other, of the different branches of science, will explain the difficulty.
Care | Fear | Future | Need | Obligation | Posterity | Public | Will | Work |
Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL
Hence, as the line of sight to the upper part is the longer, it makes that part look as if it were leaning back. But when the members are inclined to the front, as described above, they will seem the beholder to be plumb and perpendicular.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counter-revolutionary revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government, has finally brought the class struggle to a head and has destroyed every chance of setting in a formally democratic way the very acute problems with which history has confronted the peoples of Russia, and in the first place her working class and peasants.