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The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.


William R. Alger

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The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
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WILLIAM R. ALGER A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason.
WILLIAM R. ALGER He who has no wish to be happier is the happiest of men.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth.
WILLIAM R. ALGER A thousand year a poor man watched Before the gate of Paradise: But while one little nap he sn...
WILLIAM R. ALGER The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.
WILLIAM R. ALGER What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with de...
WILLIAM R. ALGER Words of love, are works of love.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Public opinion is a second conscience.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Apothegms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feelings.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.
WILLIAM R. ALGER We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond fields of the mind.
WILLIAM R. ALGER Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as Saadi sings, But the immensest empire is too nar...
WILLIAM R. ALGER An Arab, by his earnest gaze, Has clothed a lovely maid with blushes; A smile within his eyeli...
WILLIAM R. ALGER Fill up the goblet and reach to me some! Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum.
WILLIAM R. ALGER False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.
WILLIAM R. ALGER A gray eye is a sly eye, And roguish is a brown one; Turn full upon me thy eye,-- Ah, ho...
WILLIAM R. ALGER After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is a solution, and the soul's inde...
WILLIAM R. ALGER The moon is a silver pin-head vast, That holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast.
WILLIAM R. ALGER As two floating planks meet and part on the sea, O friend! so I met and then drifted from thee.
WILLIAM R. ALGER In the nine heavens are eight Paradises; Where is the ninth one? In the human breast. Only th...
WILLIAM R. ALGER Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation Which rises from the cup of mad impiety, And go...
WILLIAM R. ALGER Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.
WILLIAM R. ALGER A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason
WILLIAM R. ALGER The moon is a silver pinhead vastThat holds the heavens tent-hangings fast.
WILLIAM R. ALGER

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WILLIAM R. ALGER He who has no wish to be happier is the happiest of men.
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WILLIAM ALGER The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the eart...
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not b...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Courage is found in unlikely places.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or conte...
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Not all who wander are lost.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wis...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's the job that's never started takes longest to finish.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one w...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Still round the corner there may wait,
A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step ont...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has go...
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN Whether you're a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. Th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does no...
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Over the years, more than one reviewer has described my fantasy series, 'A Song of Ice and Fire&...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China ...
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Short cuts make long delays.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a di...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Still round the corner there may wait,
A new road or a secret gate.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things on...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not t...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or j...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as wel...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more p...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally sma...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN Little by little, one travels far.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish.
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN The original 'Hobbit' was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy t...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN There was part of me that wanted to see the world and travel to distant places, but I could only do ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have files, I have computer files and, you know, files on paper. But most of it is really in my he...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems...
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I do get invitations all of the time to play actual fantasy football, by the way, but I get the feel...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, ...
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J. R. R. TOLKIEN In October 1920 I went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separate...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for ...
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giant...
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share t...
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're no...
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GEORGE R. R. MARTIN A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I th...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN If I was a soldier going to war, I'd be pretty scared the night before a battle. It's a scar...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Of course it's not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler and it never has been.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits....
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret m...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be ...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for a...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE We tolerate shapes in human beings that would horrify us if we saw them in a horse.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Literature flourishes best when it is half trade and half an art.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE There are two kinds of fools: One says, This is old therefore it is good. The other one says, This i...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Let us remember, when we are inclined to be disheartened, that the private soldier is a poor judge o...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he can't sit on it.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE There are no rewards or punishments -- only consequences.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way ...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own...
W. R. [WILLIAM RALPH] INGE I only feel sorry for weak people. And mostly what I've come to find is that the weak people are...
R. KELLY I have Marvin Gaye's driver's license. His wife sent it to me, because she really loved my &...
R. KELLY I started to wear the sunglasses all the time at school, hiding behind them... I'd walk down the...
R. KELLY I'm very responsible. And with ability you have to have responsibility. I'm not perfect. But...
R. KELLY When you hear romantic music, it makes you want to take your girl out to dinner or buy her something...
R. KELLY Not only did I get an A in music but I got an A in ladies.
R. KELLY If I'm going to be a leader then I have to go places that other people are afraid to go to. That...
R. KELLY You know, I'm no different from a fireman. You got to run into a fire no matter how big the blaz...
R. KELLY I still feel like I'm alone at times - even if I'm in the midst of a million people. Because...
R. KELLY