If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then mythology has no claim to the appellation. But if that which tends to make us happier and better can be called useful then we claim that epithet for our subject.
Threading the Rude Eye is not the sort of fiction I typically read. But the author, Stanley Wheeler (to whose newsletter I subscribe) is an online pal and a good writer. The premise of the book is interesting. It’s set in an alternative history of the American Revolution, and is first in a series. What
There are persons of whom the world approves who have no merit beyond the vices they use in the affairs of life. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 273 As true today as it was over 350 years ago. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell,
In all professions we affect a part and appearance to seem what we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 256 Phased another way– All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Shakespeare, As You Like It François Duc de
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be said. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 250 François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington (limited), London. 1888. Originally published in 1665.
It is not so dangerous to do wrong to most men, as to do them too much good. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 238 Apparently, I have never gotten around to giving you the skinny on our pal, La Rochefoucauld. Here is his bio from that infallible source, and here he is at Britannica.
We do not despise all who have vices, but we do despise all who have not virtue. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 186. More of La Rochefoucauld’s Reflections There are a lot these days who have not virtue. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans.
However deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 168 François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington (limited), London. 1888. More of La Rochefoucauld’s Reflections
The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 157 More of La Rochefoucauld’s Reflections François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington (limited), London. 1888. I
It is easier to govern others than to prevent being governed. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 151 More of La Rochefoucauld’s Reflections François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington (limited), London. 1888.
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 142. So much they talked, so very little said. Charles Churchill, “The Rosciad” (1761) François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections;
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 93 This one tickled me. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington
There is no disguise which can hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it does not. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld No. 70 François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, trans. Samson Low, Marston, Dearle & Rivington (limited), London. 1888. Speaking of love, today
The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld This is maxim no. 8, altogether there are eight about passion. In no. 9 he
Picture, so you can pair the face to the name. Born in Paris (1613) to an old and prominent noble family; died in Paris (1680). Married in 1628, eight children by his wife. Through the years he had four mistresses, at least one of whom bore him a son “for whom he had great affection.”
What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste. Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 1 I mentioned yesterday when I introduced Rochefoucauld’s Reflections;
I mentioned the other week that I was transcribing my margin notes from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man into my commonplace book. In the spirit of tying up loose ends, I finished that little project earlier this week. I started this post by simply quoting from the final chapter those things that had really
A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900, Derry and Williamson. Oxford University Press, 1961. In what sense is Man the possessor of power over Nature? C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man (1943) That is the question that begins the third and final chapter (from a series of three lectures) in
From March 2019. The McChoakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchasable in the cheapest market and
This is a re-post from July 2021 (seems like yesterday). I left it as originally written but I’ll add a bit. I was skimming through The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English (Victor Watson, ed., Cambridge University Press 2001) yesterday and read the entry on Randall Jarrell (1914-1965). Jarrell was a brilliant poet–he was
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