Śāntideva helps Lucretius
In my post on marriage I wrote about Lucretius as offering something of an alternative to Buddhist views on death. There is a contrast in emphases: where Buddhists warn us of the terrible losses that...
View ArticleVirtuous and vicious means
I generally agree with Aristotle that virtue is a mean between two vices – even in cases like justice, which are often taken as counterexamples. If one goes too far in one direction (say, cowardice or...
View ArticleQui veut faire l’ange fait la bête
In his excellent little book on Plotinus, Pierre Hadot quotes a lovely maxim of Blaise Pascal‘s, of which I was not previously aware: qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête. Roughly: whoever wants to act...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....