"More than 3000 selections from more than 400 authors" -- Dust jacket.

Chronicles of the Vikings defines the social values of the Viking Age, their heroic view of life which sometimes contrasts with their more prosaic way of looking at things.

Gathers witty quotations about nature, religion, fear, hope, fame, wealth, politics, marriage, happiness, knowledge, language, and death

This book is an investigation of wisdom in its diverse nature and types. Wisdom may be as everyday as folk adages or as arcane as a religious parable. In one form it is highly practical, and in another it addresses what is fundamentally real. In another form it is moral wisdom, and when it is psychological wisdom it can inform wise judgment. It can be philosophical, and it can be religious. And in one form it is mystical wisdom. These types of wisdom are essentially different, even when they overlap. Often wisdom is proffered in wise sayings—such as proverbs, aphorisms, or maxims—but one form, mystical wisdom, defies articulation. In this book all these types of wisdom will be presented, drawing upon a diversity of sources, and critically examined. Offered wisdom carries in its train a number of issues, not the least of which is how to distinguish between true wisdom and pseudo-wisdom.Also it may be asked of wisdom, when it is true, whether it is true relativistically, varying with culture, or true universally. Many types of wisdom have their origin in antiquity, but can there be new forms of wisdom? Does wisdom, as contemporary philosophers have maintained, have an underlying universal nature? This book addresses these issues and others.

This groundbreaking new source of international scope defines the essay as nonfictional prose texts of between one and 50 pages in length. The more than 500 entries by 275 contributors include entries on nationalities, various categories of essays such as generic (such as sermons, aphorisms), individual major works, notable writers, and periodicals that created a market for essays, and particularly famous or significant essays. The preface details the historical development of the essay, and the alphabetically arranged entries usually include biographical sketch, nationality, era, selected writings list, additional readings, and anthologies

Aphorisms are often derided as trivial, yet most people rule their lives with five or six of them. This collection contains five or six hundred, some of which you wouldn't want to rule your life with. "The Rochefoucauld of the Twitter generation has arrived. Aaron Haspel's crisp, curt, cold-eyed aphorisms pack the maximum amount of truth into the minimum amount of space - and do it with elegance and wit." -Terry Teachout, drama critic, The Wall Street Journal "Delightfully witty, painfully true, and thoroughly enjoyable reading...a gem on every page." -Megan McArdle, Bloomberg columnist and author of The Up Side of Down "Aaron Haspel is good, very good." -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile and The Black Swan "My favorite aphorist of the 21st century." -Colin Marshall, Boing Boing "Extremely good...wry, wise rules." -James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase and editor of Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists