50 Books to Read Before You Die

words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Wisdom

February 22, 2019 /

“The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”

—from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

May 7, 2018 /

“I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers . . . [H]ow low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success. ”

—from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

January 29, 2018 /

“‘There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die . . . that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.

Live, then, and be happy . . . and never forget, that until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—“Wait and hope.”‘”

—from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

October 26, 2017 /

“‘There are two great powers . . . and they’ve been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”

—from The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

September 16, 2016 /

“It seemed to Frodo then that he heard, quite plainly but far off, voices out of the past:

. . . .

I do not feel any pity for Gollum.  He deserves death.

Deserves death!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some die that deserve life.  Can you give that to them?  Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety.  Even the wise cannot see all ends.”

–from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkein

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