classics digests, reflections and reviews
A keynote speech given by a clinician at a seminar a few months ago made a lasting impression upon me, not for the scientific content, but for a story she told: A patient, who had an advanced disease and had been receiving treatment at our hospital, came in to my office. He was a well-known physician and we had collaborated often in the past, so we knew each other very […]
Read moreGrowing up in a family of scientists, I’ve always considered a life spent in the attainment of knowledge as ideal and paramount. As philosopher KongZi (孔子) writes, “If I hear the truth in the morning, it’s all right to die in the evening (朝闻道，夕死可矣)” In the words of twice Nobel Prize laureate Marie Curie, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” I remember, during […]
Read more[Homer] does introduce divine agency, not to destroy, but to prompt the human will; not to create in us another agency, but offering images to stimulate our own; images that in no sort or kind make our action involuntary, but give occasion rather to spontaneous action, aided and sustained by feelings of confidence and hope. Certainly we cannot suppose that the divine beings actually and literally turn our bodies and […]
Read moreI had read this Chinese poem by Bai juyi (白居易) many years ago, but it hit me hard when I stumbled upon it returning from a trip visiting my aging parents. How many thoughts and emotions are packed in these few lines! 离离原上草， 一岁一枯荣。 野火烧不尽， 春风吹又生。 远芳侵古道， 晴翠接荒城。 又送王孙去， 萋萋满别情. My literal translation: Abounding with grass is the meadow. Per annum it ever withers and flourishes. Fire of the wild cannot utterly […]
Read moreThe world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. ― Augustine of Hippo The above quote by St. Augustine is perhaps one of the, if not the, most popular, quotes of his, more than all his sayings on Christian theology and philosophy. This is a testimony to the fact that the love or dream of travel is universal. Some of the most famous epic […]
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The subtitle of this post should perhaps be “Kierkegaard’s Conception of Time As I Understand it”, but Kierkegaard scholars might strongly disagree with me. I’ve been meaning to write this ever since I read “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments”, as part of an overall review of the book, but that review is long overdue. A recent discussion with an atheist friend of mine on religious belief reminded me of […]
Read more“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;” — Shakespeare “As You Like It” “There are such curtains which drop down in life. God is passing to the next act.” — Victor Hugo “Les Misérables” The notion that the world is a stage didn’t originate with Shakespeare. Many ancient Greeks and Romans recognized their roles and played them […]
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