Conciseness has always seemed to me to be the most essential problem in art. To fit his destiny to a man so nicely as to leave no vacuum, to inclose him as radiantly as the ember does the fly and yet the while preserve every detail of his being has, of all tasks, ever been the dearest to me. –Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig was an Austrian journalist and playwright, with […]
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“Ajax” by Sophocles
Quotes of Characters: Athena Who was more full of foresight than this man [Ajax], Or abler, do you think, to act with judgment? Odysseus None that I know of. Yet I pity His wretchedness, though he is my enemy, For the terrible yoke of blindness that is on him. I think of him, yet also of myself; For I see the true state of all us that live– We are […]
Read more“On Ends” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum; Volume XVII of Loeb Classical Library’s 28-volume series] An Epicurean’s Criticism of Education “[Epicurus] refused to consider any education worth the name that did not help to school us in happiness. Was he to spend his time in perusing poets, who give us nothing solid and useful, but merely childish amusement? Was he to occupy himself like Plato with music and geometry, […]
Read more“A Confession” by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy wrote this book shortly after he finished “Anna Karenina”. He was in his early 50s, in full possession of his mental and physical powers. wealthy, famous and well-respected, and yet he despaired of life so much that he was on the verge of suicide. This state of mind is also partly reflected in the character of Levin in “Anna Karenina”. This book gives a candid, stunning account of the […]
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