With More Success Come More Responsibilities And Burdens (Podcast)

Some people think that as they become wealthier and more successful, their lives will resemble that of an idle aristocrat. They believe they will finally reach a point of perfect comfort. The reality is very different. With more success come more work, and more responsibilities, not less. You will have to develop a whole new set of skills to adapt to these changed circumstances. But you can do it.

Continue reading

Straining At A Gnat, And Swallowing A Camel

When we focus on what is insignificant, we are likely to neglect what is most crucial.  He who fixates on the irrelevant escrescence overlooks the significance of the larger structure.  It is with good reason that this admonition is of old date:

Continue reading

How Did Ancient Texts Become Lost?

The student of classical antiquity’s literary monuments may find himself perplexed by the relative paucity of its surviving examples.  How could it be, we may wonder, that such a large corpus of celebrated works slipped, nearly unnoticed in the passage of centuries, into oblivion?  Why is it that so many writings held in universally high regard exist today only in fragmentary or mutilated form?  How could these tragedies of indifference and neglect have been permitted?  By what processes are classics “lost”?  These are worthy and difficult questions.  They can be answered; but the answers are unsettling, and carry implications very modern in their relevance. 

Continue reading

Our Job Is Fighting

Quintus Fulvius Flaccus was a commander and politician of the Roman Republic who ascended to the consulship in 179 B.C.  There is an interesting story about him found in the ancient historians, which we will relate here. 

Continue reading