1. When nineteenth-century novelists exposed the hypocrisy of cruel people pretending to be kind, observed Nadezhda Mandelstam, they testified to the unquestioned acceptance of kindness as a virtue. As La Rochefoucauld observed, hypocrisy is the…
Constantly forge body and mind. –Miyamoto Musashi, Nine Articles, in John Stevens, Budo Secrets: Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters
There were ample precedents in Dostoevsky’s work for his thematic focus on the problem of theodicy raised by Ivan—the problem of the existence of evil and suffering in a world presumably created by a God…
The rules of the Kingdom of God are not at all utopian: if you want to put an end to mimetic rivalry, give way completely to your rival. –Rene Girard, Maxim #158, in All Desire…
“He did a multitude of good deeds as secretly as bad ones are usually done.” Said about Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Charles E. Wilbour
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses. –Wisława Szymborską, Nobel Lecture
My music is the production of my genius and my misery. –Franz Schubert, 1797-1828 Quoted in Phil G. Goulding, Classical Music
“Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine.” –Janie, in Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
I often wonder whether I have in me a single gene or drop off blood inherited from my biblical ancestors, or even from the ghettos of the old Spanish and German cities. Who knows, perhaps…
Where there is hatred, let me sow love. –St. Francis of Assisi