Notes on a classical education inspired list of history books, plus some comics featuring Inpho.
Part One Quote The most accomplished, most beautiful, most universally envied race of mankind, those most capable of seducing us into life — [the Greeks] were the ones who needed tragedy? Or even more — art? What for? Notes 🔥 Nietzsche begins the second edition of The Birth of Tragedy with a kind of preface called "An Attempt at Self-Criticism." He seems mystified by his book and by…
Introduction Quote ... today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused,... but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places. - Nietzsche (talking about this book). Notes 🔥 Taking another break from…
Conclusion Quote The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world. Notes 🔥 In the late 18th century, the word "revolution" took on a different meaning, more "linked to a belief in the advancement of mankind from barberism to civilization, based on the spread of enlightenment and on the inalienable…
Part Two Quote We have it in our power to begin the world over again ... The birthday of a new world is at hand. Notes 🔥 This — the issue of American independence — is not just an issue of the day, says Paine, but it will have effects "to the end of time." It involves a whole continent and, really, the whole world. 🔥 Being an English colony did afford some benefits, but they were…
Part One Quote A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. Notes 🔥 Government is a necessary evil in the best case scenario. In the worst case, it's an intolerable evil, made worse by the fact that "we (the people)…
Introduction Quote The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind. Notes 🔥 Thomas Paine was born in Norfolk, England in 1737. 🔥 He tried a few different jobs, but none worked out. So in 1774, two years before the American Revolution, he moved to America. 🔥 Two of his works had a massive impact on that revolution: Common Sense and American Crisis . 🔥 After the American…
To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the inner and the outer world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by mind at large — this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone. Aldous Huxley Resources The quotes and content for this comic come from Aldous…
Conclusion Quote In The Social Contract, [Rousseau] is himself taking on the role of the legislator; he is the "great man" who can discern what the masses cannot, and he can comfortably leave its execution in other hands. - Susan Wise Bauer Notes 🔥 One big reason Rousseau got a lot of attention was his claim that in a state of nature humans could be good, but that a political state always led to…
Book Four Quote The common good is obvious everywhere, and all that's required to see it is good sense. Notes 🔥 When people are united, they have a unified will. When they're divided, decisions are made to benefit a part of the people only, not the common good. 🔥 The way the general will works itself out in practice isn't totally precise or concrete. With voting for example, you rarely ever get…
Book Three Quote The political body, like the human, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries within it the causes of its own destruction. Notes 🔥 "I am ignorant of the art of making myself clear to those who do not with to concentrate," Rousseau says to open this book. 🔥 Every free act has two causes: will and force. These correspond to the legislative and executive power. The…