Regarding [Israel’s] methodical breaking of Palestinian bones, Wiesel courageously chose silence: ‘I refuse to see myself in the role of judge over Israel. The role of the Jew is to bear witness; not pass judgment.’ …
1. Always maintain only a joyful mind. —Mind-training slogan, Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind 2. The effect of wisdom is continuous joy… and only the strong, the just, and the temperate can possess…
During this active seedtime, Emerson was also reading in all directions. He read systematically only for a particular project. He read current books and old books…And from almost everything he read he culled phrases, details,…
The Caribbean poet Aimé Césaire once wrote, “There’s room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory.” Late in life, when his political horizons broadened out, Edward Said would often quote this line. We should make…
Norman Finkelstein, What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance, and Courage OR Books, 2012 Norman Finkelstein is working on a new book on the subject of “cancel culture.” Long before the phrase attained recent prominence, Finkelstein…
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts…
Two things fill the mind with every new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadily I reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I…
Lahiri, Mandelstam, Weil
I think the great problem is the whole issue of national identity, or what I would call the politics of identity—the feeling that everything you do has to be either legitimated by, or has to pass…
Sunday 4 February 2018 Justin I came up with this list of poets to become acquainted or reacquainted with, a few classic, several moderns, and many contemporaries. A good way to do this is fine …