The term “life” is not exactly a clear and distinct idea. —Jacques Barzun

This is obviously untrue and less obviously true.

This way to Albany.

Antiparos

You speak for the pope and not God. —after Sc. 53, Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33

Freedom cannot be defined as politicians taking things away from citizens.

Little Lamb @waisberg

Schopenhauer and Barzun on Rereading @Waisberg

Motley heirloom tomatoes. Mary wasn’t sure about the green, so cooking it separately.

Theodore Leavitt, “Marketing Myopia”, Harvard Business Review, July–August, 1960.

Balloon Flower

Barzun, “Trains and the Mind of Man”, Holiday, February 1960

If we fall seven times, we must pray at least seven times.

Alain on "The Cult of the Dead"

In the same way that we do not think as we would like to, and the course of our thoughts depends principally on what we see, hear and touch, it is quite reasonable to give ourselves certain sights, in order to give ourselves the reveries that are attached to them. This is how religious rites have a value. But they are only a means; they are not the end; so we should not visit the dead in the same way that others listen to the Mass or say their rosary. —Alain

Hmm, “should not,” which is to say listening to the Mass is the end, saying the rosary is the end?

Alain’s brevities assume shared knowledge. —George Steiner

Alain’s brevities assume shared knowledge.

“In the république des instituteurs, Emile-Auguste Chartier was sovereign. He signed himself “Alain.” His was, unquestionably, a commanding presence in European moral and intellectual history. His influence permeated French education and significant elements in French politics from 1906, the year of Dreyfus’s rehabilitation, to the late 1940s. Alain’s prose possesses unsurpassed economy and clarity. His stoic integrity held generations of pupils and disciples spellbound. Comparison with Socrates became routine. Alain was “the sage in the city,” the Maître des maîtres. In addition to philosophical and… waisberg.micro.blog

A basket full of books. —quoted by David Mills, “Grim, pessimistic, unsentimental wisdom to live by from the ancients”

To enslave is to reduce to slavery or to make a slave of. To buy or own a slave does not enslave the slave, and the person who does either is not an enslaver.

A notable thing about the parables is that there are many tests, but for each person there is just one test. Find out what your test is.

A couple we know are visiting Athens.

Hate should not be a crime.

Yet this is in thy favour, thou dost abhor the ways of the Nicolations, as I, too, abhor them. —Ronald Knox’s translation of Apocalypse 2:6. Other translations.

In “a woman and her doctor,” “woman” means a woman with child.