The noted jurisprudent, polymath, political scientist, and theologian Ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Habib (علي إبن محمد إبن حبيب) was a native of Basra, Iraq, and lived from about A.D. 974 to 1058. He is more commonly known by the name Al-Mawardi (الماوردي).
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There is a saying referenced in Cicero’s Academica (I.5) that touches on our practical inability to give instruction to power. The reference is as follows:
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Ambrose Bierce remains the only major writer who actually experienced, and survived, combat in the American Civil War. Henry James and Mark Twain chose to sit out the war. Twain’s actions in particular look very much like the behavior of a deserter. Walt Whitman served as a nurse, but he did not fight.
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An enigmatic story is contained in Ibn Khallikan’s biographical summary of the life of the seventh century Basran poet Ibn Mufarrigh. The story is one of the few times that the biographer, speaking of himself in the first person, relates an incident connected with his own life.
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I had a great conversation recently with Thorin (Twitter: @Thorin). This is a must-listen podcast.
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Service to others is what gives life meaning. We were put on this Earth to contribute, to share, and to pass on what we know for the benefit of mankind. Every person has an instinctive, fundamental desire to teach and help others, and we should develop this instinct. Doing this will contribute to the positive energy in the world, and will come back to us in unexpected ways.
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We will relate two anecdotes that appear in the historian Polyaenus’s Stratagems (V.14—V.15). There once was a young man named Thrasymedes who fell in love with the daughter of Peisistratus, an ancient tyrant of Athens. One day, as the girl was walking in an official processing through the streets of the city, Thrasymedes boldly approached her and attempted to engage her in conversation.
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word elasticity in the following way: “Of material substances, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous: that spontaneously resumes (after a longer or shorter interval) its normal bulk or shape after having been contracted, dilated, or distorted by external force.”
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Aratus of Sicyon was a Greek politician and military commander who lived from 271 to 213 B.C. He was forced to flee his native city of Sicyon at seven years of age when his father, a prominent politician, was murdered by a rival. Raised in Argos, he distinguished himself as an athlete and a leader; and his determination to liberate Sicyon led him to train intensively in the arts of war and command.
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There is a passage in Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods that is worthy of reflection and discussion. It is found in III.28 of the treatise, and reads as follows:
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Quintus Curtius 
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