“Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for … Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world” I wonder if John Lennon would still have imagined “brotherhood of man” if he had read this play: Two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, two brothers killed […]
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Cicero 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 […]
Read more“The Clouds” by Aristophanes
A passage in Plato’s “Apology” is a very good summary of this comedy: “What do the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit: ‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’ Such is […]
Read more“On Obligations” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: De Officiis] The Roman Book of Proverbs Cicero, in this letter to his son Marcus, discourses on the four cardinal virtues, wisdom (prudence), justice (beneficence), courage (greatness of the soul), and temperance (concept of the fitting). He reflects on Roman politics and history, draws on the writings of philosophers and poets, as well as personal experience, and stipulates how an individual should conduct himself in his private […]
Read more“On Old Age” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: Cato Maior de Senectute] A treatise extolling the virtues of mental pursuits and horticulture in defense of old age against its alleged disadvantages, “first, that it withdraws us from active pursuits; second, that it makes the body weaker; third, that it deprives us of almost all physical pleasures; and, fourth, that it is not far removed from death.” Cicero and his friend Atticus, to whom he dedicated […]
Read more“On Friendship” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: De Amicitia] For I am indeed moved by the loss of a friend such, I believe, as I shall never have again, and—as I can assert on positive knowledge— a friend such as no other man ever was to me. But I am not devoid of a remedy, and I find very great consolation in the comforting fact that I am free from the delusion which causes […]
Read more“On Divination” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: De Divinatione] Dreams When, therefore, the soul has been withdrawn by sleep from contact with sensual ties, then does it recall the past, comprehend the present, and foresee the future. For though the sleeping body then lies as if it were dead, yet the soul is alive and strong, and will be much more so after death when it is wholly free of the body. Hence its […]
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