Great Throughts Treasury

"For the credit of virtue it must be admitted that the greatest evils which befall mankind are caused by their crimes." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Pride is the master sin of the devil, and the devil is the father of lies." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"These, characteristically different from one another and variously modified by the gunas, present to the intellect (buddhi) the whole purpose of the Self (purusha), illumining it like a lamp." - Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

"In nature, there is less death and destruction than death and transmutation." - Edwin Way Teale

"When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue not by wire pulling and demagoguery not by the arts of popularity not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country." - Elihu Root

"Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore—despite..." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop)" - Elizabeth Gilbert

"I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this earth to do?" - Elizabeth Gilbert

"The culture of Rome just doesn't match the culture of Yoga, not as far as I can see. In fact, I've decided that Rome and Yoga don't have anything in common at all. Except for the way they both kind of remind you of the word toga." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use" - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Men can never understand the fear of everlasting punishment that fills the souls of women and children. The orthodox religion, as drawn from the Bible and expounded by the church, is enough to drive the most imaginative and sensitive natures to despair and death." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"In tomorrow's world we must all work together as hard as ever, if we're truly to be United Nations" - Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

"Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!" - Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

"He was as yet not sufficiently experienced in ruffianism to know that one villain always sacrifices another to advance his own project; he was credulous enough to believe in the old adage of 'honor amongst thieves." - Emile Gaboriau

"A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy... It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer." - Emile Zola

"Angelique, with both hands open, lying limply on her knees, was giving herself. And Felicien remembered the evening on which she had run barefoot through the grass, so adorable that he had pursued her, and whispered in her ear, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you, the eternal cry that had finally emerged from her wide-open heart. I love you... Take me, carry me away, I am yours." - Emile Zola

"But you said so yourself, the poor lass will die of it...Do you really want her to die?" - Emile Zola

"Nothing is more irritating than to hear honest writers protest about depravity when one is quite certain that they make these noises without knowing what they are protesting about." - Emile Zola

"It was a quiet way - he asked if I was his - I made no answer of the tongue but answer of the eyes - and then he bore me on before this mortal noise with swiftness, as of chariots and distance, as of wheels. This world did drop away as acres from the feet of one that leaneth from balloon upon an ether street. The gulf behind was not, the continents were new - eternity was due. No seasons were to us - it was not night nor morn - but sunrise stopped upon the place and fastened in dawn." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me,-- the simple news that Nature told, with tender majesty. Her message is committed to hands I cannot see; for love of her, sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me!" - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Riches I hold in light esteem, and love I laugh to scorn, and lust of fame was but a dream that vanished with the morn. And if I pray, the only prayer that moves my lips for me is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, and give me liberty!' Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'tis all that I implore - in life and death, a chainless soul, with courage to endure." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"In work - meaning, in effort, in its pain and sorrow - the subject finds the weight of the existence which involves its existent freedom itself. Pain and sorrow are' the phenomena to which the solitude of the existent is finally reduced." - Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

"Things are never known in their totality; an essential character of our perception of them is that of being inadequate." - Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

"A dynamic person is one who really makes a difference in the world; who does something that changes things or other people. The magnitude of the work done may not be great, but the world is different because that person has lived and worked. The real secret of a dynamic personality is to believe that God works through you, whatever you may be doing; to put his service first, and to be as sincere, practical, and efficient as you know how." - Emmet Fox

"A bottle of wine was good company." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"In principle the great religions of the world do not differ as much as they appear to." - Ernest Shurtleff Holmes

"Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds." - Eugene Peterson

"One threat to our security comes from our feelings of depression and doubt." - Eugene Peterson

"Towards my husband, I often fail to show interest in his affairs and amusements, not rousing myself to respond when I'm tired or concerned with other things, forgetting he is very patient with me." - Evelyn Underhill

"The good shepherd shears, not flays." - Italian Proverbs

"The habit does not make the monk." - Italian Proverbs

"The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending." - Italian Proverbs

"When wine sinks, words swim." - Italian Proverbs

"But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from... the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviar, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly