Category: Wisdom Traditions

First Things First

If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious…

Today’s One-Liner (#167)

No one ever sees himself as casting the first stone. –René Girard, Maxim #22, in All Desire Is a Desire for Being: Essential Writings, edited by Cynthia L. Haven

Today’s One-Liner (#165)

These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses; and the restIs prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action. –T. S. Eliot, Dry Salvages

Bearing Fruit

Rus­sian lit­er­a­ture might almost be described as the lit­er­a­ture of conversion. (We noted some famous instances in Chapter 3.) Time and again, suffering leads to awareness of Truth or apprehension of God. Tolstoy’s autobiographical Confession recounts…

Today’s One-Liner (#163)

My approach to the Beshtian  movement is influenced by what I have taken from it, namely, the need and obligation to love the Jewish people, and, through it, all people who need compassion in a…

Start Right Now

A man must not delay his start in the right direction until the next day. Do not say: ‘To-morrow I will commence to serve the Lord properly; to-morrow I will begin to worship from the…

Working Through…

The next step in the process is for you to see that your even thinking about what you are doing is crucially important.  You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work,…

Today’s One-Liner (#161)

Get away from any man who always argues every time he talks. –ABBOT PASTOR, cited in Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the  Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century

Training in Recording

In the early  part of my acquaintance with him, I was so wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary colloquial talents, and so little accustomed to this peculiar mode of expression, that I found it extremely…