A Zone of Silence
Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you a zone of silence, a habit of recollection, a will to renunciation and detachment which puts you entirely at the disposal of the…
Category: Commonplace book
Nadezhda
Why, at the dawn of the new era, at the very beginning of the fratricidal twentieth century, was I given the name Nadezhda [“Hope” ] ? All I now heard from our friends and acquaintances…
Wake Up Already!
In our own place and time, we have made a science of escape and sleep. Rather than live at that sharp edge of life, awake and alert, we pretend that we have no sin. There…
Writing Daily
Often quoting Stendhal to the effect that one should “write every day, whether inspired or not,” Alain encouraged his students to sit down at a desk and write prolifically, as he did, at least two…
Today’s One-Liner (#130)
God deliver us from sullen saints! Saint Teresa of Ávila, in Rosemary Broughton, Praying with Teresa of Ávila
Today’s One-Liner (#112)
“He knows how to read better than any one; he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it.” –Mrs. Knowles, on Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life…
Today’s One-Liner (#110)
The temple of truth has never suffered so much from the woodpecker on the outside as from the termites within. –Vance Havner, quoted in Karen Hall, The Sound of Silence: The Life and Canceling of…
Today’s One-Liner (#108)
Nothing is more difficult to overcome than the problems we thought were already overcome.–Alexis de Tocqueville, via my friend Suzanne Renard
Today’s One-Liner (#106)
Instead of reading myths in the light of the Gospels, people have always read the Gospels in light of myths. –Rene Girard, Maxim #104, in All Desire Is a Desire for Being: Essential Writings, edited…
Today’s One-Liner (#98)
Consider yourself fortunate if, in the midst of such a whirlwind, you possess a guiding intelligence within yourself. –Marcus Aurelius, in Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius