This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
The sentimental songs she sang in music class were all about little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagoons, gondoliers -- mawkish compositions that allowed her to glimpse, through the silliness of the words and the indiscretions of the music, the alluring, phantasmagoric realm of genuine feeling.
Dreams |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I am wholly devoid of public spirit or moral purpose. This is incomprehensible to many men, and they seek to remedy the defect by crediting me with purposes of their own. The only thing I respect is intellectual honesty, of which, of course, intellectual courage is a necessary part. A Socialist who goes to jail for his opinions seems to me a much finer man than the judge who sends him there, though I disagree with all the ideas of the Socialist and agree with some of those of the judge. But though he is fine, the Socialist is nevertheless foolish, for he suffers for what is untrue. If I knew what was true, I'd probably be willing to sweat and strive for it, and maybe even to die for it to the tune of bugle-blasts. But so far I have not found it.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air?that progress made under the shadow of the policeman?s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave? In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen? I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law.
Creativity | Energy | Enthusiasm | Freedom | Good | People |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Clothes are of but little loss, if you escape from drowning.
Computer | Energy | Right | Technology |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I will take the Ring, he said, though I do not know the way.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn?t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. That there?s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo? and it?s worth fighting for.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them...
Conversation | Energy | Life | Life | Order | Religion | Service | Understand |