black blood that kept drippin'
I am no stranger to you. I was born in Troy, and the blood you see is oozing from no tree...
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classics
thoughts, observations, snippets of (mostly) classic literature and historical wisdom as lenses for modern life
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virgil is the prince of the poets
in The Aeneid, we find a seamless fluidity that is indifferent to the translator
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Thucydides, Book 4
a petition to preserve Spartan dignity in misfortune takes us back to Solon's warning
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history's first (and grandest) funeral oration
an answer, perhaps the answer, to "what we fight for?", "what we die for?" and, most importantly "what we live for?"
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dying a good death and reading antifragile
against my (acquired) skepticism of anything published in the last 50 years (exceptions: Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, The Selfish Gene), I picked up Nassim N. Taleb's Antifragile.
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the day I finished The Rambler
in every man's life, however splendid or modest, there are episodes that mark one's journey as a reader or as a person. Reading Samuel Johnson's essays is both a personal and a reader milestone.
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the victim card on Christmas Eve
for what would so soon destroy all the order of society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as a permission to every one to judge his own cause...
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the misery of sovereign power
a sword is perpetually suspended over our head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions.
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book list for the new year (2024)
the guiding principle has been, and will continue to be, to seek knowledge and beauty in books that have been tested by time. Exceptions are granted in areas of technical knowledge (e.g., physics, computer science)
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behave philosophically
when they debate some topic, they do not attempt to follow the reasoning of that which they are debating, but simply try to have the audience concur with what they are presenting.
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cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes
"Maximus was my model for self-control, fixity of purpose, and cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes. "
prayer (kavafis)
the sea engulfed a sailor in its depths. Unaware, his mother goes and lights a tall candle before the ikon of our Lady
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