Category: Quotes

Core Curriculum’s First In-Person Lecture since 2020

We’re back! After over a year of online classes, staying home, and biweekly covid tests, Boston University’s Core Curriculum has had its first in-person lecture for its Ancient Worlds course, otherwise known as CC101. As tradition would have it, the students were welcomed into the lecture to the glorious sound of Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of […]

The bright ghosts of antiquity by John Talbot

In this feature for The New Criterion titled “The bright ghosts of antiquity”, BU alumnus John Talbot writes about the baffling translations of the Loeb Classical Library, and wonders about the impact of such translations on the study of Latin and Greek: https://newcriterion.com/issues/2011/9/the-bright-ghosts-of-antiquity But then if your Greek were good enough, you wouldn’t be reading […]

From Vox: Trumps grab ’em by the p***y line anticipated by 600 years

That “Canterbury” contains “Cant-“, and that “cant” shares a precarious assonance with another word, suggests that one of our most literate bards and bawds, Chaucer, might have anticipated Trump’s latest perversion. This possibility was recently illuminated by Constance Grady at Vox. Or, less likely, Trump might have been paying tribute in his comment to some […]

from In Defense of Literacy

Snug within the book-bricked walls of a University, it may not seem that literacy is under threat. However, there is a great tradition of humanisticcommentators taking on the role of reminder to bid us keep in mind that literacy in its broadest conception is not just about the ability to decipher meaning out of written […]

Alumni Profiles: Danielle Isaacs

(Core ’07 CAS ’09) Years at Boston University: 4 years. Current location: Washington DC. Company and Title: Fine Art Specialist at Weschler’s Auctioneers and Appraisers Recent activities: Danielle writes: I completed my MA in fine and decorative art at the Sotheby’s Institute in London in 2011. I organized a sale of vintage film posters at Weschler’s from […]

Core Texts on Leadership

Here are samples from the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Don Quixote on the topic of leadership: My child, what strange remarks you let escape you. Could I forget that kingly man, Odysseus? There is no mortal half so wise; no mortal gave so much to the lords of open sky. ~ The Odyssey, Book I, […]

John Keats: “This Living Hand”

Some spring semesters, CC202 studies the works of John Keats. Here is an interesting untitled fragment the Romantic poet scribbled in a margin: This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights […]

Semi-Serious Science Quote: CC105 from Fall 2012

The Core presents a quote on the death of stars: In the later red giant phase, the Core will shrink further and heat up to over 100 million Kelvin. ~Dr. Mark Jonas  

Analects of the Core: Montaigne on fear

The Core wishes students and faculty a very fruitful and enjoyable New Year and semester, and welcomes everyone back to the trials and tribulations of intellectual life. To boost students’ courage for the coming months, and instill some Core spirit, here is today’s analect: “A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”