There are consequences

I have a love of language, specifically English.  My shelves are loaded with reference books, histories of English, Dictionaries of Quotations, grammar, etc.  

Today I begin tackling a room in the house which has become a book overflow repository.  I need to organize and ideally dispose of some of the many volumes.  Always unrewarded quest.

As is my usual custom, in order find the books later, stop myself from buying books I have already, or books I have already bought and gotten rid of, I begin inventorying the stacks.

I come across the fifth edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Elizabeth Knowles.  I know I have at least one Oxford Dictionary of Quotations from sometime in the fifties which is excellent.  When was this one published?  Maybe it is old enough to dispose of.  1999.  

My very first thought, unbidden, was "Well, no one has said much that is memorable in the past twenty years.  I'll keep it."  

I know the statement is not completely true.  If I think hard, I can probably come up with a couple of quotes from the past twenty years.  But it would be a hard enough task that I think the first thought was usefully true.  

So the fifth edition stays.

The first quote I read, randomly, is from American Robert G. Ingersoll, 1833-99.  From Some Reasons Why (1881)

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.

A fine insight.  We view the consequences as rewards and punishments based on our objectives and emotions.  But all they are is consequences.  Ties in nicely with Stoicism.