Great Throughts Treasury

"Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come." - William James

"The pure, mere love of God is that alone from which sinners are justly to expect that no sin will pass unpunished, but that His love will visit them with every calamity and distress that can help to break and purify the bestial heart of man and awaken in him true repentance and conversion to God. It is love alone in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right band, which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his own salvation." - William Law

"O Judgment ! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason! Julius Caesar, Act iii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"O monstrous arrogance, thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket, thou:-- brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread! Away thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard, as thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!" - William Shakespeare

"O my good lord, At many times I brought in my accounts, Laid them before you. You would throw them off And say you found them in mine honesty." - William Shakespeare

"O, our lives' sweetness! That we the pain of death would hourly die rather than die at once!" - William Shakespeare

"Plead what I will be, not what I have been; not my deserts, but what I will deserve." - William Shakespeare

"Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose, it was the death of him." - William Shakespeare

"See what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, an eye like Mars, to threaten and command, a station like the herald Mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill-- a combination and a form indeed where every god did seem to set his seal to give the world assurance of a man." - William Shakespeare

"Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring..." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"We invented marriage. Couples invented marriage. We also invented divorce, mind you. And we invented infidelity, too, as well as romantic misery. In fact we invented the whole sloppy mess of love and intimacy and aversion and euphoria and failure. But most importantly of all, most subversively of all, most stubbornly of all, we invented privacy." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Enough! we're tired, my heart and I. We sit beside the headstone thus, and wish that name were carved for us. The moss reprints more tenderly the hard types of the mason's knife, as Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life with which we're tired, my heart and I... In this abundant earth no doubt is little room for things worn out: disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough we once were loved, used, - well enough, I think, we've fared, my heart and I." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Thank God for grace, Ye who weep only! If, as some have done, Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place and touch but tombs,--look up! Those tears will run soon in long rivers down the lifted face, and leave the vision clear for stars and sun." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king—and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms—I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field." - Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

"If I should say the sweetest speech with the eloquentest tongue that ever was in man, I were not able to express that restless care which I have ever bent to govern for the greatest wealth." - Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

"It was not death, for I stood up, and all the dead lie down; it was not night, for all the bells put out their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl, nor fire, for just my marble feet could keep a chancel cool. And yet it tasted like them all; the figures I have seen set orderly, for burial, reminded me of mine, as if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame, and could not breathe without a key; and I was like midnight, some, when everything that ticked has stopped, and space stares, all around, or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, repeal the beating ground. But most like chaos,--stopless, cool, without a chance or spar,-- or even a report of land to justify despair." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads were toward eternity." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"For that mist may break when the sun is high and this soul forget its sorrow and the rose ray of the closing day may promise a brighter ‘morrow." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"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

"What is right may well be said even twice." - Empedocles NULL

"What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Every­one reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him." - Ernest Becker

"Before we can talk about giving aid, we must have something to give. We do not have thousands of poverty-stricken villages in our country; so what do we know about effective methods of self-help in such circumstances?" - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading." - Eudora Welty

"My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors." - Eugene Peterson

"I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils." - Euripedes NULL

"The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man." - Euripedes NULL

"What other creatures are bred so exquisitely and purposefully for mistreatment as women are?" - Euripedes NULL

"Young people, the most beautiful jewels in wealth is also the most beautiful in the case of want and woe!" - Euripedes NULL

"The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon." - Felix Adler