classics digests, reflections and reviews
Repartees Dionysius: What was the reason that philosophers go to rich men’s houses, while rich men no longer visit philosophers? Aristippus: The one know what they need while the other do not. Aristippus enjoyed the favours of Lais, a famous courtesan. “I have Lais, not she me; and it is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without ever being worsted.” To one who reproached him […]
Read moreThe Source of Wealth Of occupations attendant on our goods and chattels, those come first which are natural. Among these precedence is given to the one which cultivates the land; those like mining, which extract wealth from it, take the second place. Agriculture is the most honest of all such occupations; seeing that the wealth it brings is not derived from other men. Herein it is distinguished from trade and […]
Read moreThe word economics is derived from Greek roots meaning literally “household management”. Praise of Husbandry For the pursuit of [husbandry] is in some sense a luxury as well as a means of increasing one’s estate and of training the body in all that a free man should be able to do. For, in the first place, the earth yields to cultivators the food by which men live; she yields besides […]
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