Great Throughts Treasury

"I don't think I had even begun to have an idea where I was going, but wherever it was, that was where I wanted to go." - Wendell Berry

"No great feat is going to happen to change all this; you're going to have to humble yourself to be willing to do it one little bit at a time. You can't make people do this. What you have to do is notice that they're already doing it." - Wendell Berry

"Earth, receive an honored guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie emptied of its poetry." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"As happens in dreams, when a perfectly harmless object inspires us with fear and thereafter is frightening every time we dream of it (and even in real life retains disquieting overtones), so Dreyer's presence became for Franz a refined torture, an implacable menace. [ ... H]e could not help cringing when, with a banging of doors in a dramatic draft, Martha and Dreyer entered simultaneously from two different rooms as if on a too harshly lit stage. Then he snapped to attention and in this attitude felt himself ascending through the ceiling, through the roof, into the black-brown sky, while, in reality, drained and empty, he was shaking hands with Martha, with Dreyer. He dropped back on his feet out of that dark nonexistence, from those unknown and rather silly heights, to land firmly in the middle of the room (safe, safe!) when hearty Dreyer described a circle with his index finger and jabbed him in the navel; Franz mimicked a gasp and giggled; and as usual Martha was coldly radiant. His fear did not pass but only subsided temporarily: one incautious glance, one eloquent smile, and all would be revealed, and a disaster beyond imagination would shatter his career. Thereafter whenever he entered this house, he imagined that the disaster had happened—that Martha had been found out, or had confessed everything in a fit of insanity or religious self-immolation to her husband; and the drawing room chandelier invariably met him with a sinister refulgence." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"Once we deny a Higher Intelligence that plans and administrates our individual hereafters we are bound to accept the unspeakably dreadful notion of Chance reaching into Eternity." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"The fire you rubbed left its brand on the most vulnerable, most vicious and tender point of my body. Now I have to pay for your rasping the red rash too strongly, too soon, as charred wood has to pay for burning. When I remain without your caresses, I lose all control of my nerves, nothing exists any more than the ecstasy of friction, the abiding effect of your sting, of your delicious poison." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"This then is my story. i have reread it. it has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. At this or that twist of it i feel my slippery self-eluding me, gliding into deeper and darker waters than i care to probe." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine oh, how you have to cringe and hide, in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limbs, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point - a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions - women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unresolved problems." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighborhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quiet continuously a sense of their existence and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom? An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know. All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! — that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess – he was a woman." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"I have seen very few people. Nessa came again. How painful these meetings are! Let me try to analyse. Perhaps it is that we both feel that we can exist independently of the other. The door shuts between us, and life flows on again and completely removes the trace. That is an absurd exaggeration." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Ruin, weariness, death, perpetually death, stand grimly to confront the other presence of Elizabethan drama which is life: life compact of frigates, fir trees and ivory, of dolphins and the juice of July flowers, of the milk of unicorns and panthers’ breath, of ropes of pearl, brains of peacocks and Cretan wine." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"I wrote these verses, but another claimed the merit of them." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"Why are you mangling me, Aeneas? Spare my body. I am buried here. Do spare the profanation of your pious hands. I am no stranger to you; I am Trojan. The blood you see does not flow from a stem. Flee from these cruel lands, this greedy shore, for I am Polydorus; here an iron harvest of lances covered my pierced body." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"A young man wanted to know the difference between Heaven and Hell. The sage led him to two rooms with observation portals, one labeled Heaven and one Hell. Looking in at Hell he saw a banquet table filled with luscious food but the people at the table were emaciated and distressed. Their spoons had long handles to reach the food, but the handles were too long to bring the food to their mouths. Then he looked in on Heaven. Same table full of luscious food. Same long spoons. But the people were healthy and happy and using their long-handled spoons to feed one another." - Vicki Robin

"Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for." - Vicki Robin

"You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that." - Victor Hugo

"Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"Sometimes the frustrated will to meaning is vicariously compensated for by a will to power, including the most primitive form of the will to power, the will to money." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the size of human suffering is absolutely relative." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"A virtuous person enjoys happiness, peace and prosperity and is liked by everybody. Such a person is blessed with a long life." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross, the teamster, and J.A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing four thousand barrels at Los Lobos river, and sixteen on the pump at Antelope, and I'm on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we'll make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and 'Bunny' is sitting beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make the ugly blunders or have painful memories that I have, but will be wise and perfect and do everything I say." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

"The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

"Wherever there was a group of people, and a treasure to be administered, there Peter knew was backbiting and scandal and intriguing and spying, and a chance for somebody whose brains were all there." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

"The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"The use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"Those who dislike fantasy are very often equally bored or repelled by science. They don't like either hobbits, or quasars; they don't feel at home with them; they don't want complexities, remoteness. If there is any such connection, I'll bet that it is basically an aesthetic one" - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"As long as scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems." - Vannevar Bush

"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. The abacus, with its beads strung on parallel wires, led the Arabs to positional numeration and the concept of zero many centuries before the rest of the world; and it was a useful tool— so useful that it still exists." - Vannevar Bush

"And we will all bake together when we bake. There'll be nobody present at the wake. With complete participation in that grand incineration, nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak." - Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer

"You can't bet your whole life on some destination. You've got to make the journey work too. And that is why I leave you with some wit and wisdom attributed to Mark Twain: Always work like you don't need the money. Always fall in love like you've never been hurt. Always dance like nobody is watching. And always -- always -- live like it's heaven on earth." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

"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

"I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire." - Thucydides NULL

"My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, but was done to last forever." - Thucydides NULL

"Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay." - Thucydides NULL

"A good heart is the sun and moon, or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps its course truly. King Henry V, Act v, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"But her's, which through the crystal tears gave light, shone like the moon in water seen by night." - William Shakespeare

"One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real and why only a hundred thousand Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question." - William Morris

"The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it happened to be the one he lived in." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

"The system of life on this planet is so astoundingly complex that it was a long time before man even realized that it was a system at all and that it wasn't something that was just there." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

"I'm actually an evil bastard in real life. Fark allows me to vent weirdness. Thank god for that, too." - Drew Curtis

"White House pressrooms (no matter which political party is in charge) toss out a huge dump of bad news around 5:00 PM every Friday. Which as far as I can tell is at least five hours after the media corps has clocked out for a three-martini lunch with no intention of coming back to work until Monday." - Drew Curtis

"Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at II, iii)" - William Shakespeare

"Pleasing things: finding a large number of tales that one has not read before. Or acquiring the second volume of a tale whose first volume one has enjoyed. But often it is a disappointment." - Sei Shōnagon