Creatures of a day, what is anyone? What is he not? Man is but a dream of a shadow. Yet when there comes as a gift of heaven a gleam of sunshine, there rest upon men a radiant light.
Pindar, Odes for Victorious Athletes
A commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)
Saturday, April 02, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Who can fathom the soundless depths?
Jules Verne, riffing on the Book of Ecclesiastes in his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne, riffing on the Book of Ecclesiastes in his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Capitalism is a partnership between governors and merchants that secures the power of both.... merchants grow rich because state power protects them or looks away when the time is right.
Martha Howell, The New York Review (April 7, 2016)
Martha Howell, The New York Review (April 7, 2016)
Thursday, February 11, 2016
In essence, the planet runs on a cycle of water-splitting by photosynthesis to form oxygen and the production of water by respiration.
Paul G. Falkowski in Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
Paul G. Falkowski in Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
Sunday, February 07, 2016
Today, not carrying a smartphone indicates eccentricity, social marginalization, or old age.
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (February 55, 2016)
Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review (February 55, 2016)
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