Category: Analects

Analects of the Core: Austen on stupid men (and some Austeniana)

September 8, 2011 at 2:54 pm

Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all. — Elizabeth Bennet, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Volume II, Chapter iv, 151-152 (Penguin Classics edition) * […]

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Analects of the Core: Petrarch on sailing with a foe at the helm

September 7, 2011 at 4:23 pm

Today’s Analect is drawn from Petrarch’s Canzoniere (#189) translated by Mark Musa: My ship full of forgetful cargo sails through rough seas at the midnight of a winter between Charybdis and the Scylla reef, my master, no, my foe, is at the helm… Passa la nave mia colma d’oblio per aspro mare, a mezza notte […]

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Analects of the Core: Ferry on terrified gods

September 6, 2011 at 4:50 pm

Terrified gods got themselves up as high as they could go, nearest the highest heaven, cringing against the wall like beaten dogs. * Lines 20-22, in Book III of Tablet XI, of David Ferry’s “rendering in verse” of the Epic of Gilgamesh, studied in the first-year Core Humanties, and the topic of Prof. Brian Jorgensen’s […]

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Analects of the Core: Adams on perspective

May 10, 2011 at 12:20 pm

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ […]

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Analects of the Core: Confucius on the force of words

May 3, 2011 at 10:50 am

Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men. – Confucius, Analects (Book 20, Chapter 3)

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Analects of the Core: Cervantes on reaching the unreachable

May 3, 2011 at 10:40 am

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this. – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

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Analects of the Core: Feynman on uncertainty in science

May 3, 2011 at 10:35 am

I would now like to turn to a third value that science has. It is a little more indirect, but not much. The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, […]

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Analects of the Core: Darwin on sympathy

April 27, 2011 at 11:30 am

The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion. It should, however, be borne in […]

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Analects of the Core: Homer on the father figure

April 22, 2011 at 11:02 am

Friend, let me put it in the plainest way. My mother says I am his son; I know not surely.  Who has known his own engendering? I wish at least I had some happy man as father, growing old in his house– but unknown death and silence are the fate of him that, since you […]

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Analects of the Core: The Old Testament on dust

April 20, 2011 at 10:59 am

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. – Genesis 3:19

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