Category Archives: Reading

My comments on whatever I am currently reading.

Quote for the Day: Omar Khayyám on religious fundamentalists

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

And do you think that unto such as you a maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew God gave the Secret, and denied it me? Well, well, what matters it! Believe that too. – from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám I liked it so much, selections … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Ivan Karamazov on the irreconcilable suffering of the innocent

Posted on December 16, 2012 by

Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: La Rochefoucauld on Facebook

Posted on April 15, 2012 by

We concern ourselves less with becoming happy than making others believe we are. – La Rochefoucauld, from the Maximes Or – in other words – from the recent piece in The Atlantic that asks if Facebook is making us lonely: “It’s a … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Walt Whitman on love and swagger

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me….I know that it is good for you to do so. – Walt Whitman, from “A Song for Occupations.” My god!, this Whitman poetry … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Lawrence Krauss on the universe

Posted on March 1, 2012 by

The universe is huge and old, and rare things happen all the time – including life. – Lawrence Krauss from a lecture on cosmology that, if you have an hour, may blow your mind. — Addendum – Hannah Montana and … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Lucretius on the cruelty of religions

Posted on February 3, 2012 by

“Religions are always promoting hope and love, but their deep, underlying structure is cruelty. This is why they are drawn to fantasies of retribution and why they inevitably stir up anxiety among their adherents. The quintessential emblem of religion – … Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday, Sylvie Inez: A selection of photographs taken by little Ms. Sylvie; & Quote for the Day: Montaigne on the aim of parenting

Posted on November 16, 2011 by

In honor of my daughter’s 3rd birthday (which is today), I publish a selection of photographs she herself has taken over the past year. Sylvie very deliberately sets up frames; and for every dozen or so pictures she takes, she … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Emerson on striving

Posted on November 13, 2011 by

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson from his essay “Circles” as quoted in a review of American Nietzsche, a new book that explores Emerson’s influence on … Continue reading →

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Quote for the Day: Montaigne on final tasks

Posted on October 22, 2011 by

I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still less of my unfinished garden. – Michel de Montaigne from “That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die” in the Essays. Montaigne is mocking a man … Continue reading →

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The Patriotism of Dylan

Posted on October 20, 2011 by

Sean Wilentz’s new book, Bob Dylan in America, includes this passage describing Dylan’s 1966 performance in Paris at which he draped a U.S flag on the stage for the second half of the concert eliciting ”U.S. go home!” jeers from the French … Continue reading →

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