classics digests, reflections and reviews
XLI. On Divinity God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucilius : a holy spirit indwells within us. one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God […]
Read moreNo evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him. –Plato, Apology 41d A friend of mine passed away a week ago, on February 28, 2018. When I received the news, the first thing that came to mind was the above saying of Socrates. It is fitting to remember her on International Women’s Day, for she was one of the […]
Read moreAristotle writes in Magna Moralia, “When we wish to see our own face, we do so by looking into the mirror, in the same way when we wish to know ourselves we can obtain that knowledge by looking at our friend. For the friend is, as we assert, a second self.” For Gilgamesh, the demigod-king of Uruk, knowledge of his intimate friend Enkidu, his second self, ultimately leads to knowledge […]
Read moreThe Philosophical vs Practical Mind The part of the soul which is possessed of reason has two divisions, of which one is the deliberative faculty, the other the faculty by which we know. That they are different from one another will be evident from their subject-matter. For as colour and flavour and sound and smell are different from one another, so also nature has rendered the senses whereby we perceive […]
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 more[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“My greatness consists in making myself follow my own instructions.” (Letter II) Wisdom and Power “It is natural for wisdom and great power to come together, and they are for ever pursuing and seeking each other and consorting together. … When men talk about Hiero or about Pausanias the Lacedaemonian they delight to bring in their meeting with Simonides and what he did and said to them; and they are […]
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