According to his biographer Ibn Khallikan, a Christian physician of Baghdad named Ibn al-Talmid who practiced there around the year 1100 spoke the following words of advice:
Author: Quintus Curtius
The Five Protecting Companions
Our trusted friend Ibn Muqaffa provides us with the following advice which I have committed to memory:
The Reality Of The G Manifesto
In this podcast we answer some of the most common questions I’ve received about the G Manifesto.
“Who is he?”
“What does he do?”
“Is he really doing the things he says he’s doing?”
We discuss some of the take-away lessons, and then go into some recent tweet readings.
Coming In 2019: A New Translation Of Cornelius Nepos’s “Lives Of The Great Commanders”
Fortress of the Mind Publications is pleased to announce that 2019 will see the release of the first illustrated, annotated translation of Cornelius Nepos’s Lives of the Great Commanders to appear in modern English.
Victory On Ice: The US vs. The USSR In The 1980 Winter Olympics
If you’re feeling down and have two hours to spare watching an old sporting event, here is something guaranteed to lift your spirits. It is the hockey game played between the United States and the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. I wanted to post this game for several reasons.
On Living Near The Ocean
Although I do not live near the ocean now, I grew up in a small town that was close to it. The spirit of place enters imperceptibly into one’s bloodstream; and one gets used to the tang of rotting seaweed, the early morning salt mist, the relentlessly shifting dunes, and the omnipresent screams of the gulls. I have found that being near the ocean is restorative of health.
Erasmus Loses All His Money, And Still Triumphs
We have observed many times before in these pages that disaster can often serve as an impetus to growth and eventual victory. This point was reinforced in an interesting story that I recently came across in a biography of the famous humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam.
The Sword Of Mars
The humanist Poggio Bracciolini wrote a long letter to his friend Niccolo Niccoli in November of 1430. The letter contained the following words:
Continue readingPeople Want To Be Left Alone (Podcast)
In this podcast we talk about how the media deliberately tries to foment discord for its own self-serving purposes, and how this aligns with the purposes of the plutocracy. We compare this ethic to an interesting anecdote related by the Roman historian Priscus that occurred while he was traveling to the court of Attila the Hun in 448 A.D. Most people just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace, and this is the ideal we should seek in an era of perpetual outrage.
Coming Full Circle
As a man hopefully grows in experience and knowledge, he will begin to notice a curious thing. The knowledge that he continues to acquire, and the sights that he continues to see here and there, subtly redirect him back to where he first departed. It is almost as if some grand cosmic joke is at work. Now when I say we return to where we first started, I do not mean that we return as ignorant as when we first left. We have grown, matured, and become more complete; there is no going back to the old ways and old days. And yet, as knowledge grows, we begin to long for the places of our youth: the sights and sounds of our younger days, and the pleasant connections to eras past. Wisdom reduces all things to their essentials.
Quintus Curtius 
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