Reminders
Whereas, Sir, you know courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.—Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Yammering
When people get together they are never silent for a moment. They will always talk. When you listen to what they say, a great deal of it is pointless. There is much harm and little…
Finding and Loving Islam
I teach a course called Comparative Religion and Culture at Maryville University, and this past semester I was fortunate to be with Ajla Masinovic on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An engaged and insightful learner in each…
Focus
Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. —Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson There is no temper more unpropitious…
Sensibility and Sense
“This is the most sensible man that I ever say in my life.”—Mrs. Porter, on Dr. Johnson, quoted in W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson I live with the most sensible person I’ve ever seen in…
Being So Inclined
[Samuel Johnson] said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely…
Welcome the Test
No man can form a just estimate of his own powers by unactive speculation. That fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by…
Favorite Simone Weil Passages
It is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin. Method of investigation— as soon as one has arrived at any position, try to find in what sense the contrary is true….
Diligence
Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted, when a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises…
Missing the Mark
Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron. –Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson The tribe is likewise very numerous…