Great Throughts Treasury

"O credulity, thou hast as many ears as fame has tongues, open to every sound of truth as of falsehood." - William Havard

"Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out, and lurched over to Arthur. Look, Earthman, he said angrily, you've got a job to do, right? The Question to the Ultimate Answer, right? What, that thing? said Arthur, I thought we'd forgotten about that. Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it's worth a lot of money in the right quarters. And it's all locked up in that head thing of yours. Yes but ... But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our fingers on that we can hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to ransom, and that's worth a bundle. I owe mine a mint. Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm. Alright, he said, but where do we start? How should I know? They say the Ultimate Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I supposed to know what the question is? It could be anything. I mean, what's six times seven? Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with excitement. Forty-two! he cried. Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead. Yes, he said patiently, I know that. Zaphod's faces fell. I'm just saying that the question could be anything at all, said Arthur, and I don't see how I am meant to know." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

"Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"O you mighty gods! This world I do renounce, and in your sights shake patiently my great affliction off. If I could bear it longer, and not fall to quarrel with your great opposeless wills, my snuff and loathed part of nature should burn itself out." -

"Oh, thou did'st then ne'er love so heartily. If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run inot, thou has not loved. Of if thou has't not sat as I do now, wearying they hearer in thy mistress's praise, thou has not loved. Of if thou hast not broke from company abruptly, as my passion now makes me, thou has not loved." -

"The karmic philosophy appeals to me on a metaphorical level because even in ones lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same ole addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequences, until we can finally stop and fix it. This is the supreme lesson of karma ( and also of western psychology, by the way)- take care of the problem now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up the next time. And that repetition of suffering-that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding-there's where you'll find heaven." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain, and troubles swarm like bees about a hive; I shall believe the heights for which I strive are only reached by anguish and by pain; and though I groan and tremble with my crosses, I yet shall see, through my severest losses, the greater gain." - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"All round there was a rising tide of beer, widow Désir's barrels had all been broached, beer had rounded all paunches and was overflowing in all directions, from noses, eyes - and elsewhere. People were so blown out and higgledy-piggledy, that everybody's elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbor and everybody thought it great fun to feel his neighbor's elbows. All mouths were grinning from ear to ear in continuous laughter." - Emile Zola

"A power of Butterfly must be - the Aptitude to fly. Meadows of Majesty concedes and easy Sweeps of Sky." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails....Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Come now, hear how the Fire as it was separated caused the night-born shoots of men and tearful women to arise; for my tale is not off the point nor uninformed. Whole-natured forms first arose from the earth, having a portion both of water and fire. These did the fire, desirous of reaching its like, send up, showing as yet neither the charming form of the limbs, nor yet the voice and parts that are proper to men." - Empedocles NULL

"In other words, it is not so much a question as to whether we are able to cure a patient, whether we can or not, but whether we should or not." - Ernest Becker

"It seems to me there's this tyranny that's not accidental or incidental to make women feel compelled to look like somebody they're not. I think the effort is being made to get us to turn our time and attention to this instead of important political issues." -