This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The very people who burst with proofs of exuberant vitality could easily be taken for prepared corpses, from whom the news of their not-quite-successful decease has been withheld for reasons of population policy. Underlying the prevalent health is death. All the movements of health resemble the reflex-movements of beings whose hearts have stopped beating." - Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
"For the passions of men, which asunder are moderate, as the heat of one brand, in assembly are like many brands that enflame one another, (especially when they blow one another with orations) to the setting of the commonwealth on fire, under pretense of counseling it." - Thomas Hobbes
"For evil news rides post, while good news baits." - Thomas Middleton
"When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. ‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies.’ ‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.’ ‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.’ The little ones leapèd and shoutèd and laugh’d And all the hills echoèd." - William Blake
"In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers anybody else to rail at me." - William Congreve
"The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I would no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune than I would make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation." - William Congreve
"At issue in the Hiss Case was the question whether this sick society, which we call Western civilization, could in its extremity still cast up a man whose faith in it was so great that he would voluntarily abandon those things which men hold good, including life, to defend it." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"The Wizard of Oz (M. G. M.) should settle an old Hollywood controversy: whether fantasy can be presented on the screen as successfully with human actors as with cartoons." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"No one snowflake ever feels responsible for the avalanche." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"Oh, Theo, why should I change — I used to be very passive and very gentle and quiet — I'm that no longer, but then I'm no longer a child either now — sometimes I feel my own man." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"One man is the echo of the next man, both wrongly assuming they are original sources." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals." - Thucydides NULL
"Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity." - William Godwin
"You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them -- especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it." - William Law
"Folk say, a wizard to a northern king at Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, that through one window men beheld the spring, and through another saw the summer glow, and through a third the fruited vines a-row, while still, unheard, but in its wonted way, piped the drear wind of that December day. So with this Earthly Paradise it is, if ye will read aright, and pardon me, who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss midmost the beating of the steely sea, where tossed about all hearts of men must be; whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, not the poor singer of an empty day." - William Morris
"It is profit which draws men into enormous unmanageable aggregations called towns, for instance; profit which crowds them up when they are there into quarters without gardens or open spaces; profit which won’t take the most ordinary precautions against wrapping a whole district in a cloud of sulphurous smoke; which turns beautiful rivers into filthy sewers, which condemns all but the rich to live in houses idiotically cramped and confined at the best, and at the worst in houses for whose wretchedness there is no name" - William Morris
"O heaven! that one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times." - William Shakespeare
"O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year. The Merry Wives of Windsor (Anne Page at III, iv)" - William Shakespeare
"Pleasure will be paid, one time or another." - William Shakespeare
"In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary." - Emil M. Cioran
"To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy." - Emil M. Cioran
"I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again—it is hers yet—he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it..." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness. (Mr. Lockwood)" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me - will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say, twenty years hence, “That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since - my children are dearer to me than she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!†Will you say so, Heathcliff?" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"The impressions made on his mind by this kind of reading took such a hold of it that he felt a need within him of reproducing those pictures of bygone days. His ambition was to be, one day, the Walter Scott of France. Deslauriers dreamed of formulating a vast system of philosophy, which might have the most far-reaching applications." - Gustave Flaubert
"Behind that, there was something else at work, beyond any design of the ring maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien