HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · logic, method, and demonstration · will, choice, and freedom · sin, guilt, and repentance · justice as a virtue · education and the training of the young · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · terminology and precision · stoic and epicurean counsel · spiritual purification · self-education · prudence and practical wisdom
Usually: argument (4) · exhortation (4) · reflection (3) · wonder (3) · crisis of belief (2) · curiosity (2) · detachment (2) · dialogue (1) · narrative (1) · coming of age (1)
“We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves: fear, desire, hope, still push us on towards the future, depriving us, in the meantime, of the sense and consideration of that which is to amuse us with the thought of what shall be, even when we shall be no more.” Michel de Montaigne, Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Volume 02 · insight
“This angelick counsel every man of letters should always have before him.” Samuel Johnson, The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Vol · precept
In a new essay section, Montaigne claims human beings are never truly present because fear and desire push them toward the future, and he recommends self-knowledge and doing one’s proper work rather than chasing what comes later.
THAT OUR AFFECTIONS CARRY THEMSELVES BEYOND US. Such as accuse mankind of the folly of gaping after future things, and advise us to make our benefit of those which are present, and to set up our rest upon them, as having no grasp upon that which is to come, even less than that which we have upon what is past, have hit upon the most universal of human errors, if that may be called an error to which nature herself has…
Samuel Johnson discusses a story by Le Clerc: a merchant buys a scholar-tutor through flattery, then concludes scholastic life harms morals and understanding; he then argues learning must be tempered by self-knowledge and social duty.
On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ'd; Leave to the schools their atoms and their void. IT is somewhere related by Le Clerc, that a wealthy trader of good understanding, having the common ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to an university, resolving to use his own judgment in the choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart of an academick, and …
It suggests Plato’s ideas can still elevate modern life, but argues self-education after youth is hard because people lack teachers and self-knowledge, leading to mental stagnation.
is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties,—a life not for the many, but for the few. Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine of their ordin…
Apuleius admits he has looked in his mirror and defends mirror-gazing as natural self-knowledge and moral discipline, comparing mirrors favorably to sculpture and painting for truth and motion.
the face of a corpse. So far superior to all pictorial art in respect of truthful representation is the craftsmanship of the smooth mirror and the splendour of its art. 15. Two alternatives then are before us. We must either follow the precept of the Lacedaemonian Agesilaus, who had no confidence in his personal appearance and refused to allow his portrait to be painted or carved; or we must accept the universal cus…
Calvin begins Book I’s doctrine of original sin by urging self-knowledge through remembering Adam’s creation and fall, arguing that humility and renewed seeking for God follow from acknowledging human degeneration.
On All Mankind, And Of Their Degeneracy From Their Primitive Condition. The Doctrine Of Original Sin. There is much reason in the old adage, which so strongly recommends to man the knowledge of himself. For if it be thought disgraceful to be ignorant of whatever relates to the conduct of human life, ignorance of ourselves is much more shameful, which causes us, in deliberating on subjects of importance, to grope our…
Using a sun-and-motes metaphor, Teresa argues that in rapture the soul sees its uncleanness more clearly than before, and she says true humility is achieved in rapture as God distributes the fruits.
like water in a vessel, which appears pellucid when the sun does not shine through it; but if it does, the water then is found to be full of motes. 37. This comparison is literally correct. Before the soul fell into the trance, it thought itself to be careful about not offending God, and that it did what it could in proportion to its strength; but now that it has attained to this state, in which the Sun of Justice …
He rejects the charge that Coleridge’s ideas are mere mystery: deep thinking may be hard, but it is the cost of genuine metaphysical self-knowledge, akin to algebra’s study.
being understood, and without inquiring into the cause of that difficulty, where at the same time he cannot but see and acknowledge the presence of great intellectual and moral power. But if it be intended by the objection to say simply, that the thoughts of the Author are often difficult to be apprehended--that he makes large demands not only upon the attention, but upon the reflecting and thinking powers, of his r…
After comparing Understanding to Reason and citing Newton versus Ptolemy, Coleridge discusses the need for careful reflection on meanings, defending pedantic terminology as necessary for precise self-knowledge.
[94] See Wisd. of Sol. vii. 22, 23, 27.--H. N. C. [95] Accordingly as we attend more or less to the differences, the *sort* becomes, of course, more or less comprehensive. Hence there arises for the systematic naturalist, the necessity of subdividing the sorts into orders, classes, families, &c.: all which, however, resolve themselves for the mere logician into the conception of *genus* and *species*, *i.e.* the com…
In dialogue, Philosophy questions Boethius whether the world is governed by chance or rational direction, then concludes that sickness comes from forgetting both the end of existence and what a man truly is.
'Nothing.' 'Now,' said she, 'I know another cause of thy disease, one, too, of grave moment. Thou hast ceased to know thy own nature. So, then, I have made full discovery both of the causes of thy sickness and the means of restoring thy health. It is because forgetfulness of thyself hath bewildered thy mind that thou hast bewailed thee as an exile, as one stripped of the blessings that were his; it is because thou k…