Author: Mark J. Chmiel

Today’s One-Liner (#8)

To have a scapegoat is to not realize you have a scapegoat. –René Girard, Maxim #58, in All Desire Is a Desire for Being: Essential Writings, edited by Cynthia L. Haven.

Today’s One-Liner (#6)

The face offers itself to your compassion and to your obligation.  –Emmanuel Levinas, in Jill Robbins, Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas

What’s Been Going on

Once people accepted the idea of an app, you could get them to pay for dozens of them—if not more. You could get people to send thousands of dollars to strangers in other countries to…

Today’s One-Liner (#4)

bi you shi yan. –Mengzi, “Always have a task” Wang understood Mengzi’s teaching of bi you shi yan as “always have a task.” One must maintain a constant vigil over one’s thoughts and ideas and…

Reading Jewish

In 1994, I purchased Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon, and would peruse it from time to time, and pick a book off of Bloom’s four lists.    He got me back to Shakespeare  and sparked…

Today’s One-Liner (#3)

May I be a light for those in need of light.  –Shantideva, The Bodhicaryavatara: A Guide to the Buddhist Path of Awakening, translated by Kate Crosby & Andrew Skilton

Today’s One-Liner (#2)

Do not waste time on nonessentials.  –Miyamoto Musashi, Nine Articles, in John Stevens, Budo Secrets:  Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters