Fidelity
I am not Orthodox, nor am I religiously dogmatic, and my anti-secular views are very far from any proselytizing tendencies. But I am a son of Hillel Zeitlin and a grandson of great-grandfathers… the God-experience…
Category: Commonplace book
Know Your Purpose
By refusing to distract himself from the main task, by jealously guarding his energies for what really mattered, [Arthur] Waley was able to produce his vast corpus of work. Title is a key theme in…
Today’s One-Liner (#31)
They learn everything, except the art of learning. –Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning
Today’s One-Liner (#30)
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. –Joan Didion, The White Album
Today’s One-Liner (#29)
In my mind there are three things: concentration, loving-kindness, and peace. –Dipa Ma, in Amy Schmidt, Dipa Ma: The Life and Teachings of a Buddhist Master
Don’t Wait till Later
The Stoics would always say, one must think death is imminent, but it was less to prepare for death than it was to discover the seriousness of life. Marcus Aurelius, for example, as a Stoic,…
Today’s One-Liner (#25)
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. –Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook,” in Slouching towards Bethlehem Sao Paulo,…
One to One
Emerson never wrote for groups or classes or institutions; his intended audience was always the single hearer or reader. –Robert Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire, xii
Show Up Already
Even if you lack all faith, simply to seat yourself before an image, hold a rosary and take up a sutra book is to perform a virtuous act, however perfunctory, even seated on your meditation…
Today’s One-Liner (#19)
Whenever people really believe in some truth larger than the academic world, they do not dedicate themselves to the pursuit of academic success with as much ferocity as the people who believe in absolutely nothing. …