Quotes from thinkers, old and new, about how the humanities relate to our lives.
Gambling on the meaning of nothing
Gambling on the meaning of nothing: how much do we really understand one another, even as friends? Minaccio, a witty man and a gambler, once lost his cash and his coat, too, playing at dice [...]
Lao-Tzu advises Confucius on the art of life and ruling
In a political season, Daoist thinking on keeping the measure of things. ------------------ Whoever thinks what matters is to get rich is incapable of renouncing salary. Whoever thinks what matters is to get famous is [...]
Edna St. Vincent Millay on human fallibility
Her sonnet meditates on human degradation, and self-degradation, in the new Iron Age. From "Epitaph on the Race of Man" Here lies, and none to mourn him but the sea, That falls incessant on the [...]
Why read the classics
Why read the classics: Italo Calvino (1923-1985) explains the nature of a classical literary composition, which has various means of speaking to us throughout the different times of our lives. If the books have remained the same [...]
How books lengthen our lives
Umberto Eco explains how books, as our familial elders, deepen our emotional lives across generations. Valentino Bompiani once circulated a saying: “one person who reads is worth two.” It was said by a publisher probably as [...]
History and nemesis, the natural and moral sciences
Thoughts of Frederick Douglass on finding the trajectory of moral and social justice in the course of history. There is, in the world's government, a force which has in all ages been recognized, sometimes as [...]
George Washington summons the meaning of the moment (1783)
George Washington, at the close of the Revolution, imagines the nation in concert with philosophers and lawgivers, who foster letters, commerce, and well-being. The Citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the [...]
Mathematical and intuitive minds
Thus the reason why certain intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they are quite unable to apply themselves to the principles of mathematics, but the reason why mathematicians are not intuitive is that they [...]
The Two Cultures of Scientists and Non-Scientists
In fact, the separation between the scientists and non-scientists is much less bridgeable among the young than it was even thirty years ago. Thirty years ago the cultures had long ceased to speak to each [...]
Martin Luther King on Education, 1947
As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that [...]