classics

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)

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.

"Maximus was my model for self-control, fixity of purpose, and cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes. "

the sea engulfed a sailor in its depths. Unaware, his mother goes and lights a tall candle before the ikon of our Lady

give it first to Homer and then, 2600 years later, to Kavafis and you get something that rises above all of us.

this is the first book that I have finished from the re-reading list I compiled a while ago. And this is the book, the one I would take with me to a prolonged quarantine, and the one I’d give to all my friends if I knew they were going

marcus aurelius, the last of the Five Good Emperors, wrote one of the final classical books of stoicism. The Greek title, Ta Eis Heauton, simply means “To Himself”. Someone, somewhere, sometime used  “Meditations” as the title, and it stuck. Meditations is essentially a notebook of the Roman Emperor. It is

and then, gradually and inexorably, the fire begins to fade, and worse: the flames are not extinguished by themselves or by the Islamic powers of Asia but by their Christian brethren of Europe