Gratitude and Cleanliness

#74 "A man with genius is unbearable if he does not also have at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness."

Meaning Without Words

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'

The Last Words of Socrates

"Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"

The Labor Theory of Value

Parking on Main Street: $1.
Admission to the Columbia Museum of Art: $10.
Seeing the Nativity by Sandro Botticelli: Priceless.

Botticelli died in 1510.
He stopped painting that same year.

Religion and Entertainment

What if Emerson got it backward? What if the entertainment of one age really becomes the religion of the next?

The Deuteronomists

"Finally, the Deuteronomists stripped the king of his traditional powers. He was no longer a sacred figure. In an astonishing departure from Near Eastern custom, the Deuteronomists drastically limited the sovereign's prerogatives. His only duty was to read the written torah, 'diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandments, either to the right or the left, so that he and his descendants may reign long over his kingdom in Israel.' The king was no longer the son of God, the special servant of Yahweh, or a member of the divine council. He had no special privileges but, like his people, was subject to the law. How could the Deuteronomists justify these changes, which overturned centuries of sacred tradition? We do not know exactly who the Deuteronomists were. The story of the discovery of the scroll suggests that they included priests, prophets, and scribes. Their movement could have originated in the northern kingdom and come south to Judah after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel in 722. They may also reflect the views of the disenfrancised am ha-aretz, who had put Josiah on the throne."