tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112244682024-03-14T08:16:25.795-04:00The Daily Doubter"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - VoltaireUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2865125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-81921332392460374992024-03-14T08:15:00.005-04:002024-03-14T08:15:45.559-04:00Quote of the day“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="><i><span style="color: red;">Man's Search for Meaning</span></i></a><div><br /></div><div>This quote has a similar effect on me as the Anne Frank one <a href="https://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2024/01/putting-it-in-perspective.html"><span style="color: red;">I cited previously</span></a>; if Dr. Frankl could find in a concentration camp - while his friends and family (and wife) died around him - a way to give his life meaning and purpose despite any amount of suffering he encountered, then we all can do it - or at least try. Few of us have suffered anything as nightmarish as what he went through. And yet through his suffering he found a way to help millions of other people cope with theirs. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-42044572975419446482024-03-10T21:54:00.001-04:002024-03-10T21:54:24.390-04:00Quote of the day"I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, letter to Charles Sumner<div><br /></div><div>Feeling this.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-83601502010867701992024-03-07T07:00:00.003-05:002024-03-07T07:00:00.137-05:00Quote of the day<p> "[C]onsider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed." - Marcus Aurelius, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1JAI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1"><i><span style="color: red;">Meditations</span></i></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-46936449080301686022024-03-06T07:00:00.005-05:002024-03-06T07:23:32.439-05:00Quote of the dayFrom <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Frontier/dp/1610395697"><i><span style="color: red;">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power</span></i></a> by Shoshana Zuboff:<div><br /><div><blockquote>There are differences among various incarnations of "personalizations" and "assistance" offered by the tech giants, but these are trivial compared with the collective urge toward total knowledge - about your inner states, real-world context, and specific daily life activities - all in the service of successfully training the machines that they might better target market operations to each moment of life.</blockquote><div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-36217009494716747382024-03-05T07:00:00.008-05:002024-03-05T07:00:00.135-05:00Quote of the day<p> "Tell yourself first of all what kind of person you want to be, and then act accordingly in all that you do." - Epictetus, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Fragments-Handbook-Oxford-Classics/dp/0199595186/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2Q1S5KRO3TTWY&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PUszsfWfgMeC2VGU6EGA1aqutOj-2h81A7ip8wPO5uG_HSMFlCDtX8YIC0w0pIXOZT_uuXa4vUyYVeRorLmpwZ6YRKow7NN5sq1-x6j8m9cekSqqhfeNQo3xhKE88OAVx-D5Zb2M335k7JO4_ReW8WyAdp8XwFEEN0srbfzmECcv2S8t0mzhsIZAgptymEfxf4DhFNgOg7S4KShZEc2buhB6JGVdaJOXg2fBjmUCrgU.XqqJTDWZ1KrTZnXcqKqw1w37JWvD95ugxwXTdXWwm_U&dib_tag=se&keywords=epictetus+discourses&qid=1709597558&sprefix=epictetus+discou%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-4"><i><span style="color: red;">Discourses</span></i></a> 3.23</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-33906659058674039722024-03-04T13:50:00.003-05:002024-03-04T13:51:04.152-05:00Quote of the day"His morality is lofty and unworldly; in a situation in which man's main duty is to resist tyrannical power, it would be difficult to find anything more helpful." - Bertrand Russell, describing the philosophy of Epictetus in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Western-Philosophy-Bertrand-Russell-ebook/dp/B09NMH3ZM4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.P6IPCoq4dehiZxnrExWGOIsOpBBd-xBtm86sDqyVvt9vIrNk41kHtl1fCERWVwvI15k67BiZvcga8vOPc9g8R2dLiv873C3ahKMvPgVkMJgfrgKdy6Fa4aik2Na_e9U0ZYj8cUpSubxFYdVRddkF9pJeK9CJ1dLez8WS2khmtdkTJWxrIvye4KHSJmSy6zpZ6t_UmI_IX7OYv9DrxvbKJIqS151vazW5svhw9qx9JP8.bzT2OeFdd2ymQsamyzsN3yTQ4te0Y7xYiq3op7H1Z_k&qid=1709578148&sr=8-1"><span style="color: red;"><i>The History of Western Philosophy</i></span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-88612082472880259252024-03-03T07:00:00.024-05:002024-03-03T09:28:58.697-05:00Quote of the day<p> "There was a time when you searched Google, but now Google searches you." - Shoshana Zuboff, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Frontier/dp/1610395697"><i><span style="color: red;">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power</span></i></a></p><p>This is a book with profound importance, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy-digital-privacy"><span style="color: red;">detailing the ways</span></a> that our lives and inner selves are being gobbled up by corporations to further manipulate our behavior and make money doing so. As the <i>Guardian</i> review linked puts it</p><p></p><blockquote>It describes how global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behaviour but also to influence and modify it; and how this has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom. This is the “surveillance capitalism” of the title, which Zuboff defines as a “new economic order” and “an expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above”.</blockquote><p></p><p>But, unfortunately, the material has to be read carefully and digested to appreciate how insidious this age of surveillance capitalism is. And we have a generation of young adults for whom the norm is having their entire lives available on-line for data tracking, without seeing any problem with it or even realizing it's happening. (The extent to which these companies gather information about our lives is vaster than almost anyone imagines, and I'm certainly not exempting myself, as I didn't realize it, either, until reading this book.)</p><p>Our right to our inner selves is one of the most fundamental, necessary rights for living a fully realized human existence. And this is now being threatened by the almost entirely unregulated behemoth that is surveillance capitalism, which has annexed all human behavior/experience as substrate for predictative models of our lives. This is not right.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-7842915419212412782024-03-02T12:54:00.001-05:002024-03-03T16:49:47.499-05:00The end of America<p> It's surreal to me seeing someone who has lived his life as a narcissistic criminal and all around just horrible, indecent, unkind person still being described as "running for president." He is not running for president, because that would entail agreeing to abide by the election process. He has made clear that the only acceptable result of an election is for him to be the victor, no matter what the actual vote count is. So he isn't running for president: he is trying to install himself as Supreme Ruler of America, someone who is held accountable to no law but his own fiat. He is currently arguing that he is immune from all legal liability while President and asserts that every court case against him ever are by definition illegitimate. He attempted to stop the previous election, calling for an end to vote counting and declaring himself winner. He is on tape asking the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" i.e. fabricate the exact number of votes he would have needed to win the state. He refused to acknowledge his loss, resulting in the first siege of the US capitol since the War of 1812. The Confederate flag, a symbol of sedition, slavery and white supremacy was waved inside the Senate for the first time ever. These extremists, in devotion to their leader, attempted to stop the peaceful transition of the power of the Chief Executive officer of the United States for the first time in US history. A disgrace beyond description. <br /><br />I feel like we're living through the Aesop fable where the frogs get bored when Zeus sends them the Rule of Law to be their king, so they ask him to send them a more exciting King, and in return he sends them a water snake. Which eats them. End of story. As Paul Woodruff put it in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Democracy-Challenge-Ancient-Idea/dp/0195177185/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2AFYMNO6GOTJ8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ivf46njF85KfVPNYDpPvIVbTFWHF0dLSMCXWk-gxL8Q.mFASGQkRi1QfBPYlw0YO-062ODO0v19XFKvRqQLd2jE&dib_tag=se&keywords=first+democracy+paul+woodruff&qid=1709401866&sprefix=first+democracy+paul+woodruff%2Caps%2C121&sr=8-1"><i><span style="color: red;">First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea</span></i></a> </p><p></p><blockquote>And so it was - and still is - when people are frustrated with the law's stupidities or delays or inconveniences. If they wish for a ruler who will rise above the law, they are offering themselves to be devoured. </blockquote><p></p><p>Aesop commented elsewhere: <br /></p><blockquote>Chance shows us two roads in life; one is the road of freedom, which has a rough beginning that is hard to walk, but an ending that is smooth and even; the other is the road of servitude, which has a level beginning, but an ending that is hard and dangerous. </blockquote><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-56547092478248032312024-02-27T05:18:00.003-05:002024-02-27T05:18:28.620-05:00Quote of the day<p> "Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them." - Marcus Aurelius, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1JAI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1"><i><span style="color: red;">Meditations</span></i></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-42481723786703432042024-02-25T08:00:00.012-05:002024-02-25T08:00:00.131-05:00Quote of the day<p> "You can generally be sure, whenever ideologues speak of true or serious freedom, that it will be at the expense of actual, ordinary freedom. And when the rhetoric is transcendental, the reality will probably be miserable." - Sarah Bakewell, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Humanly-Possible-Hundred-Humanist-Freethinking/dp/0735223378"><i><span style="color: red;">Humanly Possible</span></i></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-75856406881939566122024-02-24T07:12:00.001-05:002024-02-24T07:12:29.881-05:00Baleful quote of the day<div>From "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/alabama-ivf-ruling/"><span style="color: red;">Alabama’s IVF Ruling Is Christian Theology Masquerading as Law</span></a>" by Elie Mystal</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>What’s troubling to me is the extent to which the rest of the country has just accepted that we live under the rule of theocrats in robes and there’s nothing we can do about it. Establishment politicians, media figures, and even non-theocratic judges just kind of shrug and pretend that scripture is a reasonable basis for judicial pronouncements in a free society. If these judges and justices were establishing any religion other than fundamentalist Christianity, people would lose their minds. If an Alabama court ruled that Trump had to be kicked off the ballot because he lies so much he lacks satya, and rested their opinion in quotes from the Vedas, there would be riots. The ruling would be overturned and the judges, probably, impeached.</blockquote></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-45399955410679259692024-02-19T07:00:00.001-05:002024-02-19T07:00:00.132-05:00Quote of the day<p> "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein</p><p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Quotable-Einstein-Albert/dp/0691138176/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="><span style="color: red;"><i>The Quotable Einstein</i></span></a> edited by Alice Calaprice</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-25639503487924661582024-02-18T07:00:00.029-05:002024-02-18T07:00:00.338-05:00Stealing from the future to give to the present(ly) rich<p> I hear often people saying there is too much free stuff given away by the government. Almost always this ire is directed towards people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and that this is how people have their votes purchased. What I very rarely hear spoken against, however, is the much vaster sum of money that is given to the already rich and powerful; corporations and the super-rich - people who have vastly more political influence than people who receive some form of social welfare. This is why I consider <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Free-Lunch-Wealthiest-Themselves-Government/dp/1591841917"><span style="color: red;">Free Lunch</span></a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Legal-Campaign-Rich-verybody-ebook/dp/B000OCXHJA/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="><span style="color: red;">Perfectly Legal</span></a></i> by David Cay Johnston to be such important books. They detail how our economic system has been rigged across decades to transfer the nation's wealth from the many to the few, flowing money upwards like Niagra Falls in reverse, and how the wealthy benefit extensively from taxpayer subsidies.</p><p>So today I come across this: a detailed article about how corporate tax breaks are leading to the defunding of education across the nation. Read it and weep for the future: "<a href="https://theconversation.com/students-lose-out-as-cities-and-states-give-billions-in-property-tax-breaks-to-businesses-draining-school-budgets-and-especially-hurting-the-poorest-students-222940"><span style="color: red;">Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students</span></a>."<br /></p><blockquote>What exactly Atlanta and other cities and states are accomplishing with tax abatement programs is hard to discern. Fewer than a quarter of companies that receive breaks in the U.S. needed an incentive to invest, according to a 2018 study by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a nonprofit research organization. <br /><br />This means that at least 75% of companies received tax abatements when they’re not needed – with communities paying a heavy price for economic development that sometimes provides little benefit.</blockquote><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-55095523618015974922024-02-17T15:33:00.003-05:002024-02-17T19:12:20.416-05:00Quote of the day<p> "I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy." - Thomas Paine, <i>The Age of Reason</i> (1794)</p><p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Humanly-Possible-Hundred-Humanist-Freethinking/dp/0735223378"><span style="color: red;"><i>Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope</i></span></a> by Sarah Bakewell</p><p>It's still difficult for me to wrap my mind around how someone could express this kind of sentiment and end up so despised (only 6 people saw fit to attend Paine's funeral, despite him having played a significant part in the birth of the United States and generally lived as an avatar for democracy.) </p><p>People are fickle and take it personally when their beliefs are criticized; and many were inclined to see his criticism of superstition and organized religion to be corrosive to organized society. But Paine believed that "[i]nfidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what [one] does not believe." </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-50203371309041312222024-02-14T08:00:00.001-05:002024-02-14T08:00:00.130-05:00Quote of the day<p> "There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play the man well and properly, no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally; and the most barbarous of our maladies is to despise our being." - Montaigne</p><p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Humanly-Possible-Hundred-Humanist-Freethinking/dp/0735223378"><i><span style="color: red;">Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope</span></i></a> by Sarah Bakewell</p><p>This quote compliments and extends the <a href="http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2024/01/quote-of-day_0452875080.html"><span style="color: red;">previously quoted quote of the day</span></a> from him (and Bakewell) about living a life well.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-76096127634638494862024-02-13T07:41:00.002-05:002024-02-13T18:11:10.993-05:00Quote of the day<p> "The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies ... A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. " - George Eliot, "<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_of_George_Eliot/Natural_History_of_German_Life"><span style="color: red;">The Natural History of German Life</span></a>" (1856)</p><p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Humanly-Possible-Hundred-Humanist-Freethinking/dp/0735223378"><i><span style="color: red;">Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope</span></i></a> by Sarah Bakewell</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-76215963441142978902024-02-12T07:53:00.001-05:002024-02-12T07:53:17.204-05:00Quote of the day<p> "Concedo nulli" </p><p>According to Sarah Bakewell in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Humanly-Possible-Hundred-Humanist-Freethinking/dp/0735223378"><i><span style="color: red;">Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope</span></i></a> this was "the emblem and motto of Terminus, Roman god of boundaries and limits." Sixteenth century Christian humanist <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/"><span style="color: red;">Erasmus</span></a> adopted this phrase as his personal motto and his friends had it inscribed on a memorial plaque when he died. It translates to "I yield to no one."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-21286830179131105802024-02-11T13:00:00.003-05:002024-02-11T13:01:02.691-05:00Quote of the day<p> "[T]o be happy is to be good." - Aristotle, eulogy for Plato</p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/AristotleS-Children-Pa-Richard-Rubenstein/dp/0156030098"><i><span style="color: red;">Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages</span></i></a> by Richard RubensteinUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-6431484352114405892024-02-06T21:14:00.003-05:002024-02-06T21:39:03.469-05:00On haters<p> From <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1JAI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1"><span style="color: red;">Meditations</span></a></i> by Marcus Aurelius</p><p></p><blockquote><p>What their minds are like. What they work at. What evokes their love and admiration.</p><p>Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone - or their praise help them.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>There is just something so human about seeing someone who lived almost two thousand years ago struggling (recall that this is an entry in his personal journal) with dealing with toxic people in his life and reminding himself that their opinion doesn't matter.</p>He has another passage that compliments this one well: "It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own." <div><br /></div><div>Of course, he didn't mean that we shouldn't be considerate of other people, but that we should focus on what is in our control (or own opinions) and "[j]ust that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter."</div><div><br /></div><div>Also: "The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do."</div><div><br /></div><div>I love that Marcus had to remind himself this more than once, in an earlier entry in the journal he tells himself to face whatever challenges life presents "not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think." He goes on to write "that to care for all human beings is part of being human" but that "doesn't mean we have to share their opinions." </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-36713164580339444802024-02-04T09:32:00.003-05:002024-02-04T09:33:56.761-05:00Quote of the day<p>"Become who you are." - Nietzsche</p><p>Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiking-Nietzsche-Becoming-Who-You/dp/0374170010"><i><span style="color: red;">Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are</span></i></a> by John Kaag</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-65412033851867206072024-01-30T21:27:00.003-05:002024-01-30T21:27:16.290-05:00Quote of the day<p> "[The] man who insults me ... becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle." - Epictetus, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Fragments-Handbook-Oxford-Classics/dp/0199595186/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2NYBD514M1CNR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PUszsfWfgMeC2VGU6EGA1UH3GF509-W1RjKKQoEhXh2YKbPiC1luFT4iGyIBfu_3k3KPOa0DLgeQs34n5f6lDCyMSbqsPVRBx5lRZ6gCPIe0FjvzYtbpK8UO2xve8uWDskh89BE_8xDn1f8-s2dAp1gMdqgOmFPQdEjEuro-_pPdpTzsBuN0JloUvs4SH7hkpYEUCG5K25Yi8ReW1HZ0foncFmc3IpXw65Sn1hW1M3E.u-GlaEXoYv3guvAFmZJc3d6uIneYL5HHhczdeVACGp4&dib_tag=se&keywords=epictetus+discourse&qid=1705626704&sprefix=epictetus+discourse%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-4"><i><span style="color: red;">Discourses </span></i></a>3.20</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-31341572446194895432024-01-29T08:00:00.023-05:002024-01-29T08:00:00.145-05:00Quote of the day<p> "Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions." - Marcus Aurelius, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1JAI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1"><i><span style="color: red;">Meditations</span></i></a></p><p>And he didn't even live in the age of social media, where everything is designed by social psychologists <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/dp/0593138511"><span style="color: red;">to deliberately shorten a person's attention span</span></a>. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-18869402028565056952024-01-28T08:05:00.000-05:002024-01-28T08:05:08.431-05:00Quote of the day"Of all hatreds, there is none greater than that of ignorance against knowledge." - Galileo<br /><br />Via <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cave-Light-Aristotle-Struggle-Civilization-ebook/dp/B003EY7JG2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HCTH0R1HLTHN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jJp8qJbba2KGQ4UA5J79OE30ArnGG4aISdLbyaPgXYCCJNlZBrkZL_1EdiYUYk-fxgHtyaXHujdECsi3lDEk8g.CNSODAIJ6OmOMuon4i5xC23ZCn6aIZcDs2ZKkVpKmww&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+cave+and+the+light+aristotle&qid=1705542842&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+cave+and+the+light+aristotle%2Cdigital-text%2C118&sr=1-1"><i><span style="color: red;">The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization </span></i></a>by Arthur Herman<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-79766320234239178902024-01-27T07:13:00.003-05:002024-01-27T07:27:46.710-05:00Quote of the day<p> "When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger." - Marcus Aurelius, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Modern-Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38KMXEO62CGJO&keywords=meditations+marcus+aurelius&qid=1706357520&s=digital-text&sprefix=medit%2Cdigital-text%2C165&sr=1-1"><i><span style="color: red;">Meditations</span></i></a></p><p>It's important to remember when seeing quotes from <i>Meditations</i> that it is written for an audience of one: he is saying this to himself. He is telling himself to make an active, conscience effort not to bear ill will towards anyone, for any reason. Putting this into practice, "you will have no enemies," Epictetus taught. <br /><br />The less inclined we are to categorize people as "enemy" the better: it tends to tap into the part of human nature that wants <a href="https://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2016/09/quote-of-day_12.html"><span style="color: red;">to hate without limit</span></a>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-78519898856710189652024-01-26T19:26:00.002-05:002024-01-26T19:28:20.636-05:00Quote of the day<p> "I am not in the right place - I am not a painter." - Michelangelo, Letter To Giovanni Da Pistoia When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel 1509 (<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57328/michaelangelo-to-giovanni-da-pistoia-when-the-author-was-painting-the-vault-of-the-sistine-chapel"><span style="color: red;">Gail Mazur translation</span></a>)</p><p>There is just something so humanistic about an artist over 500 years ago feeling perhaps not up to a task chosen outside of his comfort zone (Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor primarily) and second guessing himself even while creating one of the greatest artistic achievements in human history.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0