Monday 20 January 2014

Thought 11: Tacitus on England


'The sky is overcast with continual rain
and cloud, but the cold is not severe.
The length of the days is beyond the
measure of our world: the nights are
clear and, in the distant parts of Britain,
short, so that there is but a brief space
separating the evening and 
the morning twilight.'

—Tacitus,
Agricola
12.3–4

Sunday 5 January 2014

Thought 10: Heidegger on Thinking


'We never come to thoughts.
They come to us.

That is the proper
hour of discourse.'

—Martin Heidegger,
Poetry, Language, Thought,
I. The Thinker as Poet

Wednesday 1 January 2014

Thought 9: Plutarch on Public Life


'This is really the predicament of men in public life
who respond to the caprices and impulses of mobs:
they make themselves slaves and followers
in order that they may be called 
leaders of men and rulers.'

—Plutarch, Lives
Agis and Cleomenes, 
1.2