A 24 year-old Prefect of Police, Raoul Rigault, renamed the Boulevard Saint-Michel the Boulevard Michel and wanted to issue a warrant for God's arrest. "Whom do you serve?" he asked one of the many priests he arrested. "God," replied the accused. "Where does he live?" "He lives everywhere." Rigault turned to his scribe, "Write down: Serves God, a vagrant."

Hanging onto bitterness and resentment is like eating poison and expecting somebody else to die.

Thu January 23, 2003 10:05 AM ET STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish man, desolate after his wife filed for divorce, converted the family's shares and mutual funds into cash and burned the money -- $81,300, a newspaper reported Thursday. "Bitterness is not uncommon in connection with divorces but it is almost unique that one of the spouses puts fire to all their wealth," Bengt Svensson, public prosecutor in the town of Jonkoping in southern Sweden, told the daily Aftonbladet.

Little Johnny was in the garden filling in a large hole when his neighbor peered over the fence. Interested in what the youngster was up to, he politely asked, "What'cha doing, Johnny?" "My goldfish died," replied the boy tearfully, without looking up. "I've just buried him." The neighbor was concerned. "That's an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn't it?" Johnny patted down the last heap of earth, then replied, "That's because he's inside your dumb cat."

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self complacent is erroneous. On the contrary it makes them, for the most part humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel. -- W. Somerset Maugham