Great Throughts Treasury

"Let us then consider rather the incessant Now of the traveler through time, his tired mind biased towards bigness since his body must exaggerate to exist, possessed by hope." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy

"After Olympia Press, in Paris, published the book, an American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my love affair with the romantic novel. The substitution "English language" for "romantic novel" would make this elegant formula more correct." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble" - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies." - Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.

"And indeed, it cannot be denied that the most successful practitioners of life, often unknown people by the way, somehow contrive to synchronize the sixty or seventy different times which beat simultaneously in every normal human system, so that when eleven strikes, all the rest chime in unison, and the present is neither a violent disruption nor completely forgotten in the past." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"The real novelist, the perfectly simple human being, could go on, indefinitely imaging." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"There are plenty who regard a wall behind which something is happening as a very curious thing." - Victor Hugo

"His Love brings eternal peace; meeting the Guru, Nanak sings His Glorious Praises." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"I cannot describe Your Manifestations, O Treasure of Excellence, O Giver of peace. God is Inaccessible, Incomprehensible and Imperishable; He is known through the Perfect Guru." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it." - Václav Havel

"The more you study Buddhism, the more you should understand. You shouldn't become more confused. Recognize the truth and open up your "mine of wisdom."" - Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it." - Tryon Edwards

"When a tradesman is about to weigh his goods, he first of all looks to his scales and sees that his weights are right. And so for all wise, or safe, or profitable self-examination, we are not to look to frames, or feelings, or to the conduct of others, but to God's word, which is the only true standard of decision." - Tryon Edwards

"Only peace between equals can last." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"The object of education is not merely to draw out the powers of the individual mind: it is rather its right object to draw all minds to a proper adjustment to the physical and social world in which they are to have their life and their development: to enlighten, strengthen and make fit." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"There was a time when corporations played a minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"You have the greatest soul, the noblest nature, the sweetest, most loving heart I have ever known, and my love, my reverence, my admiration for you, you have increased in one evening as I should have thought only a lifetime of intimate, loving association could have increased them. You are more wonderful and lovely in my eyes than you ever were before; and my pride and joy and gratitude that you should love me with such a perfect love are beyond all expression, except in some great poem which I cannot write." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him." - Thucydides NULL

"You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational." - Thucydides NULL

"Maybe most people were fundamentally contradictory. The real people at any rate." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel! I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. The Merchant of Venice (Gratiano at IV, i)" - William Shakespeare

"An overflow of good converts to bad." - William Shakespeare

"And wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd. As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7." - William Shakespeare

"And, as I am an honest Puck, if we have unearned luck now to scape the serpent's tongue, we will make amends ere long; else the Puck a liar call. So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends." - William Shakespeare

"But will they come when you do call for them?" - William Shakespeare

"Do not plunge thyself too far in anger. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act v, Scene 4" - William Shakespeare

"DUCHESS OF YORK: God bless thee, and put meekness in thy mind, Love, charity, obedience, and true duty! GLOUCESTER: [Aside] Amen and make me die a good old man! That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing: I marvel why her grace did leave it out. King Richard III, Act ii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in." - William James

"One is never as fortunate or as unfortunate as one thinks." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that." - William Shakespeare

"Our rash faults Make trivial price of serious thing we have, Not knowing them until we know their grave. All's Well That Ends Well (King of France at V, iii)" - William Shakespeare

"PETRUCHIO: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. KATHERINE: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. PETRUCHIO: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies. Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. KATHERINE: In his tongue. PETRUCHIO: Whose tongue? KATHERINE: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. PETRUCHIO: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman." - William Shakespeare

"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, but riches fineless is as poor as winter to him that ever fears he shall be poor. Good god, the souls of all my tribe defend from jealousy! Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at III, iii)" - William Shakespeare

"Priscian! a little scratched, 't will serve." - William Shakespeare

"Now the wives of the husband’s elder brothers and his younger sister are equal in status; while they may be no bond of affection, they have become close relatives by duty. Now a pure and gentle, modest and obedient person will by adhering to duty be able to create a deep friendship and to extend affection to obtain their help. As a result, her excellence and beauty will be brilliantly displayed, her faults and defects will be concealed and hidden, her parent-in-law will cherish and commend her, her husband and master will laud and praise her, and her reputation will shine in town and village, its great glory extending to her father and mother… This is the root of glory or dishonor, the basis of fame or infamy. Of course you have to be circumspect!" - Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

"These four qualifications characterize the greatest virtue of a woman. No woman can afford to be without them. In fact they are very easy to possess if a woman only treasure them in her heart. The ancients had a saying: "Is love afar off? If I desire love, then love is at hand!" So can it be said of these qualifications." - Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

"As the grave grows nearer my theology is growing strangely simple, and it begins and ends with Christ as the only Saviour of the lost." - Edwin Percy Whipple

"The born are destined to die, the dead to be brought to life, and the living to be judged; It is, therefore, for them to know and to make known, so that it becomes known, that He is God, He the fashioner, He the creator, He the discerner, He the judge, He the witness, He the complainant. And that He is of a certainty to judge, blessed be He, before whom there is no unrighteousness, nor forgetting, nor disrespect of persons, nor taking of bribes, for all is His. Know that all is according to the reckoning and let not your [evil] inclination (yetzer ha-rah) assure you that the grave is a place of refuge for you; for without your will were you fashioned, without your will were you born, without your will do you live, without your will you will die, and without your will are you, of a certainty, to give an account and reckoning before the King of the kings of kings, blessed be He." - Eleazar ha-Kappar, alternate spelling Eliezer ha-Kappar

"In liberating Iraq, we have rid the nation and the rest of the world from the danger of Saddam Hussein." - Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole

"Set on your foot, And with a heart new-fired I follow you, To do I know not what; but it sufficeth That Brutus leads me on." - William Shakespeare

"She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd; she is a woman, therefore may be won; she is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd. What, man! more water glideth by the mill than wots the miller of; and easy it is of a cut loaf to steal a shive." - William Shakespeare

"Since you know you cannot see yourself so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself that of yourself which yet you know not of." - William Shakespeare

"Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e'er loved, or father found, a love that makes breath poor and speech unable." - William Shakespeare

"Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, Doth burn the heart to cinders, where it is. Titus Andronicus (Marcus at II, iv)" - William Shakespeare

"I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Silence and solitude are universally recognized spiritual practices, and there are good reasons for this. Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss." -

"In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end." - Emile Zola