One Kind Gesture
I am grateful to Gary Saul Morson, for his book that has engaged me over the last year, Wisdom Confronts Certainty, as well as many of his articles and essays. Thanks to Morson’s insights here…
Category: World Literature
Don’t Be Swayed by External Circumstances
The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by which, though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in a great measure preserve the peace of the mind,…
Why Read, Why Write
Books without the knowledge of life are useless…for what should books teach but the art of living? —Dr. Samuel Johnson, A Johnson Sampler, edited by Henry Darcy Curwen, p. 44. The only end of writing…
Accept Loss Forever
Bo Juyi, On Hearing Someone Sing a Poem by Yuan Zhen No new poems his brush will trace;Even his fame is dead.His old poems are deep in dustAt the bottom of boxes and cupboards.Once lately,…
Tsores, and Then Some
But even from such calamities life is by no means free; a thousand ills incurable, a thousand losses irreparable, a thousand difficulties insurmountable are known, or will be known, by all the sons of men….
Blessings of a Long Life
The world has allowed me to hand down a thousand of my poems; Heaven has let my years draw out to more than three score. I count over the happy chances that have helped me all my…
He Knew His Books
Jesus’ education in the Hebrew Bible is so extraordinary that he is able to quote a wide variety of texts with ease—and to interpret them with great depth. His knowledge of Moses’ Torah in particular…
Specks and Seeds
Incidentally, I have already mentioned that although he lost his mother in his fourth year, he remembered her afterwards all his life, her face, her caresses, “as if she were standing alive before me.” Such…
Notice the Littlest
Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a…
From Fyodor Dostoevsky to Thich Nhat Hanh
“Compassion will give meaning and understanding to Rogozhin himself. Compassion is the chief and perhaps only law of being for all mankind.”—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot Please call me by my true name,so that I can…