Sublime

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.

The orator Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.

Nor does human nature alter as between classes: by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them. Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.

Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.

The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection. In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival.

“What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.1.21–23a

Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism by Rodney Stark The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker