APHORISM

aph·o·rism  [ˈafəˌrizəm] NOUN a pithy observation that contains a general truth, a statement of some general principle, expressed memorably by condensing much wisdom into few words. Examples:  “The child is father to the man.”  (William Wadsworth)   “Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue.…

Straying afield from ourselves . . . what could we learn if we would?

Years ago, in the spring of 1989, I was reading a new book I’d just bought  by one of my favorite historians, Peter Brown, Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, and scholar of Late Antiquity. I was reading, The Body and Society, Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, and I’d just begun…

John Adams said. . .

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murder’s itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” But we must also remember: this was written in a letter from Adams to John Taylor, 17 December 1814. America had not yet established itself to the Western end of the continent,…