Category: Sage Advice
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Epicurus Has Some Sex Advice for General Petraeus, et al.
Epicurus (circa 341-271 B.C.) wrote the following to a disciple: I understand from you that your natural disposition is too much inclined toward sexual passion. Follow your inclinations as you will provided only that you neither violate the laws, disturb well-established customs, harm any one of your neighbors, injure your own body, nor waste your…
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Why Keep a Journal?
It was 42 years ago today that I first began keeping a regular journal. Before that, as a teenager, I kept some irregular journals. Why maintain a journal? When I was 16 years old, my thought was that Ididn't want time to pass with nothing to show for it. That is still my thought. The unrecorded life…
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Amounting to Something
One only truly 'amounts to something' when one no longer holds this to be the goal. (Written 24 June 1972)
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Requite Good with Good
Requite good with good; evil with justice.
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Life is for Living
Life is for living. And risks are for taking. But Henry David Thoreau says it best: "A man sits as many risks as he runs." The other side of the coin is that the risks must be proportional to the rewards. No living well without risks. No living long without circumspection.
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A Razor’s Edge
One must both strive and submit, doubt and believe, question and trust.
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Engagement with Equanimity
Can you engage with the political while retaining peace of mind? If not, avoid politics. The monkish virtues are easy to cultivate and practice in the monastery. The trick, however, is to practice them in the world — where they are needed.
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A Test for Marital Compatibility: Travelling Together
I just heard Dennis Prager say on his nationally syndicated radio show that travelling together is a good test for marital compatibility. Sage advice. Long before I had heard of Prager I subjected my bride-to-be to such a test. I got the idea from the delightful 1982 movie The Diner. One of the guys who hung out at…
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A Letter to Young Voters
I would quibble with parts of this piece by Dennis Prager, but it is worth reading. Excerpt: Young people believe that when the government gives more money and benefits to more people it helps them. This is naïve. As you get older and wiser you realize that when people are given anything without having to…
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Internalize Cautiously
There must be no uncritical internalization of the norms and expectations of others. Internalize cautiously. Live your own life by your own lights from your own inner resources.
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Widely-Read or Well-Read?
This from a reader: Mortimer Adler, in How to Read a Book, pointed out that being widely-read does not mean one is well-read. I've enjoyed reading some of your old posts about reading and studying, so I wanted to know your opinion on this matter. Should I aim to read a lot of books? Or is it…
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On Praise
We do not like to be praised if (a) the praiser is beneath us; (b) what is praised is something insignificant or common; (c) the praise is insincere, perhaps by having an ulterior motive; (d) the praise is mistaken in that we lack the excellence attributed to us. Particularly annoying is to be praised for…
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The Highest Mastery
The highest mastery is self-mastery, and the highest self-mastery is thought-mastery. He who controls his thoughts controls the seeds of words and deeds.
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Seize the Day
Horace advises that we seize the day. "Life ebbs as I speak: so seize each day, and grant the next no credit." The trouble with this advice is that what we are told to grab is so deficient in entity as to be barely seizable. The admonition comes almost to this: seize the unseizable, fix…