“It should be said that no being is called evil insofar as it is being, but insofar as it lacks some existence, as a man is called evil insofar as he lacks some virtue, and the eye is called bad insofar as it lacks the sharpness of sight.”
—Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.5.3 (via invisibleforeigner)
August 2012
26 posts
“There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.”
—
G.K. Chesterton in Heretics
A Service of
(via gkchestertonquote)
“One of the things I like about being conservative is that I recognize that it’s only a partial philosophy of life. The personal needn’t be political. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: If your life isn’t bigger than your politics, you’re doing one of them wrong.”
—Professor Mondo, “Sometimes a Waffle Fry Is Just a Waffle Fry” via Ungleichschaltung (via triadic)
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future.”
—Simone Weil, The Need for Roots (via settledthingsstrange)
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.—Joyce Kilmer, 1886–1918
“One who has inquired into the properties of hydrogen and oxygen might reasonably conclude that water is a highly combustible gas—if there were not his own experience to discourage this conclusion. As proof of the existence of mind we have only history and civilization, art, science, and philosophy. And at the same time, of course, that extraordinary individuation. If it is true that the mind can know and seek to know itself in ways analogous to its experience of the world, then there are more, richer data to be gleaned from every age and every culture, and from every moment of introspection, of deep awareness of the self.”
—Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind, page 120 (via settledthingsstrange)
Going to the Reading
Going to the reading,
Hoping the poet
Will read your poem.Not the one you wrote,
But the one
Written for you,
That you’ve never heard.-Gregory Orr
Find a ship, find a crew, keep flying.
Strand Books: Coming in third place... →
strandbooks.tumblr.com
Well, we’ve spent hours pouring over your many entries to the Strand Tumblr contest, and after much discussing (we all had our favorites!), the results are in. Thanks to everyone who participated. It has been a blast to read through all of your wonderfully creative submissions.
In third place,…
“
I have the legitimate authority to allocate those 160 minutes [per week] of my students’ and my time to the teaching of economics. Within those limits I can try to use my judgement to do what I think is best. I do not have the legitimate authority to allocate those 160 minutes to anything whatsoever, even if I do think it would be a good way for the students to spend their time. I cannot pick and choose between what I think are “good causes” and what I don’t. It’s not my call to make. It’s not my time I’m spending. The students’ time doesn’t belong to me. They signed up to learn economics, and that’s what they are going to get. Even my time doesn’t really belong to me during those 160 minutes. My time has a job to do.
So I say “no” to: student politicians; people offering summer jobs; psychology professors wanting to do experiments; people who want to warn against gambling; groups who want to talk about violence against women; religious groups who want converts; and lots of others I have thankfully forgotten.
They are asking me for my class time, and my students’ time, which aren’t mine to give how I want. They are asking me to abuse my authority. They shouldn’t even ask.
” —Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: No, you may not speak to my class (via ayjay)