Admit not sleep into your tender eyelids till you have reckoned up each deed of the day—How have I erred, what done of left undone So start, and so review your acts, and then for the vile deeds chide yourself, for the good be glad. —Epictetus, Discourses, III.10
A’s Albert Edward, well meaning but flighty, Who invited King Arthur, the blameless and mighty, To meet Alcibiades and Aphrodite.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder —Plato, Theaetetus, 155
What is art for? "L'art pour l'art" wrote Théophile Gautier as a slogan in 1835. And today's bohemians continue to repeat the creed "Art for art's sake." It's a catchy slogan, still what most people unreflectively tell themselves when confronted with the question: "What is the purpose of art?"
Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward path had been lost. —Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto I
B is for Bernhardt, who fails to awaken Much feeling in Bismark, Barabbas, and Bacon.
T is for Talleyrand toasting Miss Truth, By the side of her well, in a glass of vermouth, And presenting Mark Twain as the friend of his youth.
Socrates invented the art of cultivating a beautiful soul, perhaps because he was been born with such a famously ugly face.
Feral Philosophy 