I have read the Commedia many times, in all of the editions I could find, and I have been distracted by the different commentaries, the varied interpretations of that multifaceted work. … I have found that in the oldest editions theological commentary predominates; in the nineteenth century, historical; and currently, aesthetic, which directs us toward the accentuation of each line, one of the great virtues of Dante. –Jorge Luis Borges […]
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Tolstoy on Kant, Smoking and Writing
“It is usually said (and I used to say) that smoking facilitates mental work. And that is undoubtedly true if one considers only the quantity of one’s mental output. To a man who smokes, and who consequently ceases strictly to appraise and weigh his thoughts, it seems as if he suddenly had many thoughts. But this is not because he really has many thoughts, but only because he has lost […]
Read moreKierkegaard on Thanksgiving
“If I thank God for the good I can discern to be a good, I am making a fool of God, because then my relationship with God means I am transforming God in likeness to me instead of my being transformed in likeness to Him. I thank Him for the good that I know is a good, but what I know is the finite, and consequently, I go ahead and […]
Read moreBertrand Russell on Love
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” –Bertrand Russell “The Conquest of Happiness” Russell, when asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, whose Love he had refused to believe and accept, was quoted to have said, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only […]
Read moreCicero On Writing
“To commit one’s reflections to writing, without being able to arrange or express them clearly or attract the reader by some sort of charm, indicates a man who makes an unpardonable misuse of leisure and his pen.” –Cicero “Tusculan Disputations” My dear Cicero, why do you have to be so cruel? How many people can match your eloquence and erudition? A handful in more than two thousand years. Should the […]
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