happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end. - Arthur Schopenhauer

For where did Dante get the material for his Hell, if not from this actual world of ours?

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.