Great Throughts Treasury

"How much the wife is dearer than the bride!" - George Lyttleton, 1st Baron Lyttleton of Frankley

"The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat; men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority - demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness to sacrifice - comes graceful and beloved as a bride." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is the obligation of each person in Israel to raise up the Fallen Bride from the dust into which She has fallen." - Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

"Judah ben Teima used to say: “Be strong as the leopard, swift as the eagle, fleet as the gazelle, and brave as the lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven. He also used to say: The impudent are for Gehenna and the affable for Paradise. (He used to pray ): May it be thy will, O Lord our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days, and grant our portion in your Torah… At five years old a person should study the Scriptures, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bride chamber, at twenty for one's life pursuit, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty to be an elder, at seventy for gray hairs, at eighty for special strength (Psalm 90:10), at ninety for decrepitude, and at a hundred a man is as one who has already died and has ceased from the affairs of this world.”" - Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

"If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."" - Richard Baxter

"Who shall understand Thy secret? For Thou hast encompassed the sphere of this shining one With a fourth sphere, wherein is the Sun That completeth his circuit in a perfect year. And his body is one hundred and seventy times greater than that of the earth, According to indications and devisings of intellect. And he is the apportioner of light to all the stars of the heavens, And giveth to kings salvation And majesty, dominion and awe, And reneweth marvels on the earth, Whether for war or for peace, And rooteth up kingdoms, And establisheth and exalteth others in their stead And hath power to abase and uplift with a high hand, But all according to the will of the Creator who created him in wisdom. Every day he prostrateth himself before the King, And taketh his stand in the house of his course, And at dawn he raiseth his head And boweth towards the west in the evening. "In the evening he goeth down and in the morning he returneth."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"A fool and her money are soon courted." - Helen Rowland

"What is the use of beauty in woman? Provided a woman is physically well made and capable of bearing children, she will always be good enough in the opinion of economists. What is the use of music? -- of painting? Who would be fool enough nowadays to prefer Mozart to Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of white mustard? There is nothing really beautiful save what is of no possible use. Everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and man's needs are low and disgusting, like his own poor, wretched nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet. For my part, saving these gentry's presence, I am of those to whom superfluities are necessaries, and I am fond of things and people in inverse ratio to the service they render me. I prefer a Chinese vase with its mandarins and dragons, which is perfectly useless to me, to a utensil which I do use, and the particular talent of mine which I set most store by is that which enables me not to guess logogriphs and charades. I would very willingly renounce my rights as a Frenchman and a citizen for the sight of an undoubted painting by Raphael, or of a beautiful nude woman, -- Princess Borghese, for instance, when she posed for Canova, or Julia Grisi when she is entering her bath. I would most willingly consent to the return of that cannibal, Charles X., if he brought me, from his residence in Bohemia, a case of Tokai or Johannisberg; and the electoral laws would be quite liberal enough, to my mind, were some of our streets broader and some other things less broad. Though I am not a dilettante, I prefer the sound of a poor fiddle and tambourines to that of the Speaker's bell. I would sell my breeches for a ring, and my bread for jam. The occupation which best befits civilized man seems to me to be idleness or analytically smoking a pipe or cigar. I think highly of those who play skittles, and also of those who write verse. You may perceive that my principles are not utilitarian, and that I shall never be the editor of a virtuous paper, unless I am converted, which would be very comical." - Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

"Well, World, you have kept faith with me, kept faith with me; upon the whole you have proved to be much as you said you were." - Thomas Hardy

"I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are too easily exaggerated, and even when they are true, they always mean less than they seem to." - Thomas Merton

"Oh, Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon," - Wallace Stevens

"Anon, as patient as the female dove when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping." -

"A community of faith flourishes when we view each other with this expectancy, wondering what God will do today in this one, that one." - Eugene Peterson

"Words should be an intense pleasure just as leather should be to a shoemaker" - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"I am not an optimist. I'm a very serious possibilist. It's a new category where we take emotion apart and we just work analytically with the world." - Hans Rosling