Related Quotes

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.

Life | Life | Man |

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

All the same, I should like it all plain and clear, said he obstinately, putting on his business manner (usually reserved for people who tried to borrow money off him), and doing his best to appear wise and prudent and professional and live up to Gandalf's recommendation. Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth--by which he meant: What am I going to get out of it ? and am I going to come back alive?

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor, and a great wind rose and blew, and their hair, raven and golden, streamed out mingling in the air.

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Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

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Itay Talgam

[A conductor's] happiness does not come from only his own story and his joy of the music. The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

Compassion | Doctrine | Enlightenment |

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

Man |

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J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is. There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn't do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me, for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan.

Rights | Slavery | Work | World |

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Italian Proverbs

You surround your vineyard with thorns - place doors and locks on your mouth. You will never have a friend if you must have one without faults.

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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.

Thought | Wrong | Thought |

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J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

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J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

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J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

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J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

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