Great Throughts Treasury

"Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat." - Simone Weil

"How oft upon yon eminence our pace has slackened to a pause, and we have borne the ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, while admiration, feeding at the eye, and still unsated, dwelt upon the scene." - William Cowper

"How does man become mind? Clear intelligence and clear intelligence alone. We know, then, in all that fills heaven and earth there is but this clear intelligence. It is only because of their physical forms and bodies that men are separated. My clear intelligence is the master of heaven and earth and spiritual beings. If heaven is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its height? If earth is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its height? If earth is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its depth? If spiritual beings are deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to distinguish their good and evil fortune or the calamities and blessings that they will bring? Separated from my clear intelligence, there will be no heaven, earth, spiritual beings, or myriad things, and separated from these, there will not be my clear intelligence. Thus they are all permeated with one material force. How can they be separated?" - Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an

"The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which in other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes." - Washington Irving

"Just as a piece of shell can take all the fun out of an egg salad sandwich, just as the advent of an Ice Age can poop a million garden parties, just as a disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business, so can a fit of asthma rather spoil the first date between a young woman and an Indian." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"Best men oft are moulded out of faults. Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"But like of each thing that in season grows. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act i, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare

"CAMILLO: You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. ARCHIDAMUS: Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. Winter’s Tale, Act i, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare

"Of the wealth of the world each has as much as they take." - Italian Proverbs

"Of two cowards, the one who finds the other out first has the advantage." - Italian Proverbs