What can happiness teach that misery cannot?
That we have a capacity for both.
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• That the world is a wonderful place.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• It teaches us that happiness itself is elusive and can slip through our fingers if we set out to capture it. Misery, on the other hand, is a state that nobody pursues and no one wants to return to.
Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
• If we’re happy we have no incentive to change. Alas, we learn only through suffering.
Jake Sigg, San Francisco, California, US
• Perhaps not much, but it’s a much more pleasant way of learning.
Pat Phillips, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
• That you have a moral imperative to spread it to others.
Edward Black, Church Point, NSW, Australia
How long is a piece of string?
What extends furthest – infinity or eternity?
I don’t know, but the speed of light might have something to do with it.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
• Eternity lasts as long as the mind that wishes for it; infinity is a concept beyond the grasp of most minds.
Stuart Williams, Kampala, Uganda
• There’s not much in it. An object may travel eternally towards infinity, and eternity stretches infinitely into the future.
Joan Dawson, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Both go on for a very long time, but neither compares to love, which, as the Bard says in Sonnet 116, “bears it out even to the edge of doom”.
Richard Crane, Vallon Pont d’Arc, France
• It takes an eternity to reach infinity.
Nicholas Martin, Auckland, New Zealand
• If you give us an eternity, we might come up with a string answers stretching almost to infinity.
David Isaacs, Sydney, Australia
• Farthest, infinity. Furthest, eternity. Superlatives can be tricky!
Donna Samoyloff, Toronto, Canada
• It’s an open door – or a hall of mirrors. Maybe a piece of string? That’s my theory anyway.
The bubble of infinity continues to expand with each new multiverse, while at my age eternity draws closer every day. Truly a dark matter.
Noel Bird, Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Proverbial pistols at dawn
Are there other pairs of proverbs like “Many hands make light work” and “Too many cooks spoil the broth” that seem to express completely opposite meanings?
“Strike while the iron is hot” and “Discretion is the better part of valour”. “Everything comes to him who waits” and “Fortune favours the bold”.
Elizabeth Wagle, Schomberg, Ontario, Canada
• Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori (Virgil, Eclogues X, 69): “Love conquers all things – let us too yield to Love”; Labor omnia vincit improbus (Virgil, Georgics I, 146): “Enormous toil conquers all things”.
R M Fransson, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
Any answers?
What are the chief attributes of a soulmate?
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
How does one tell truth from propaganda?
Art Campbell, Ottawa, Canada
Send answers to
weekly.nandq@theguardian.com or Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK
