Great Tutor Quotes

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People who don’t follow their hearts are causing a great disservice to themselves, to the world, and to those who they stand by without love.
Kailin Gow (The Tutor: A Friends to Lover New Adult College Romance)
I already have a plan." Celie said, raising her hand as she would with her tutor. "Do you?" Rolf's eyes gleamed. "What is it?" "I don't think you'll like it, Lilah." Celie apologized straightaway. "It involves manure...a great deal of manure." Rolf started to laugh again.
Jessica Day George
He was of the opinion... that his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he were writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men. {Von Wright on his tutor, the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein}
Georg Henrik von Wright
Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness. He was bred for it; nobility and purpose coded in both sides of his pedigree. His mother’s father had been a diplomat, an architect of fortunes; his father’s father had been an architect, a diplomat of styles. His mother’s mother had tutored the children of European princesses. His father’s mother had built a girls’ school with her own inheritance. The Ganseys were courtiers and kings, and when there was no castle to invite them, they built one. He was a king.
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
Your old tutor did you a great disservice, Mr. Kynaston. He taught you how to speak, and swoon, and toss your head but he never taught you how to suffer like a woman, or love like a woman. He trapped a man in a woman's form and left you there to die! I always hated you as Desdemona. You never fought! You just died, beautifully. No woman would die like that, no matter how much she loved him. A woman would fight!
Stage Beauty
The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know— dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (...) Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent. When she was twelve, her father found out. “Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess,” he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher. Cimorene tilted her head to one side. “Why not?” “It’s ... well, it’s simply not done.” Cimorene considered. “Aren’t I a princess?” “Yes, of course you are, my dear,” said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands. “Well, I fence,” Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. “So it is too done by a princess.
Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1))
...The Presidential election has given me less anxiety than I myself could have imagined. The next administration will be a troublesome one, to whomsoever it falls, and our John has been too much worn to contend much longer with conflicting factions. I call him our John, because, when you were at the Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine. ...As to the decision of your author, though I wish to see the book {Flourens’s Experiments on the functions of the nervous system in vertebrated animals}, I look upon it as a mere game at push-pin. Incision-knives will never discover the distinction between matter and spirit, or whether there is any or not. That there is an active principle of power in the universe, is apparent; but in what substance that active principle resides, is past our investigation. The faculties of our understanding are not adequate to penetrate the universe. Let us do our duty, which is to do as we would be done by; and that, one would think, could not be difficult, if we honestly aim at it. Your university is a noble employment in your old age, and your ardor for its success does you honor; but I do not approve of your sending to Europe for tutors and professors. I do believe there are sufficient scholars in America, to fill your professorships and tutorships with more active ingenuity and independent minds than you can bring from Europe. The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton’s universe and Herschel’s universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world. I salute your fireside with best wishes and best affections for their health, wealth and prosperity. {Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 22 January, 1825}
John Adams (The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams)
It's about time you saw how fortunate you are. You have ... the most virile man in the world." He grinned, and in his eyes, black as sin, she saw the devil inside him laughing. But he was her devil, and she loved him madly. "The most conceited, you mean," she said. He bent his head until his great Usignuolo nose loomed as inch from hers, "The most virile, " he repeated firmly. "You are pathetically slow if you haven't learned that by now. Fortunately for you, I am the most patient of tutors. I shall prove it to you." "You patience?" she asked. "My virility. Both. Repeatedly." His black eyes glinted. "I will teach you a lesson you'll never forget. " She tangled her fingers in his hair and brought his mouth to hers. "My wicked darling," she whispered. "I should like to see you try.
Loretta Chase (Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #3))
In one of Plato's seminars a young man with a rural accent stood up one day and said Plato's philosophy was nonsense. You can have ideas that are neither real nor permanent. They can be mere fleeting fantasies. Plato evicted the student, whose name was Aristotle. Unlike Plato, Aristotle was not one of the gilded youth of Athenian society. His social background was solid middle class. But such was the encyclopedic knowledge he came to exhibit, and his skill in logical argument, that in time Aristotle gained rich benefactors, including the king of Macedonia who hired Aristotle to tutor his young son, later known as Alexander the Great.
Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
The teacher is a catalyst to convert information from a high energy state (list of facts) to a low energy state (visual concept associated with known concepts).
Peter Rogers (Straight A at Stanford and on to Harvard)
Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls.
Michel de Montaigne (The Essays: A Selection)
It remains one of the great inequalities of the world that some children are born light years ahead of others. They may come from more stable homes, from wealthy homes, from homes with cleaners and domestic staff, cooks and tutors. Everything is easier, more streamlined, more conducive to educational and career success. Others will come from one-bedroom huts with no running water and no electricity, little chance of a good education, and little time to do anything besides work. The child born into a rich family will, no doubt, progress at a faster rate and develop the sort of self-assurance that comes from stability. This is the case wherever you’re from; it is as true of communist societies as it is of capitalist ones. I have travelled the world and seen these inequalities. I have witnessed the problems such different starting blocks can bring. But if I’ve learned anything, it is that success is possible, whatever your situation and however your life begins. I hope that this story, my story, will prove inspirational and that it will encourage others to dream big, take a plunge, use whatever resources are available. If a small poor boy fishing for prawns on a lake in Ningbo can do it, then so can you.
JOURNEY TO THE WEST By Biao Wang
Great obstacles were the tutors of great men.
Carey Wallace (The Blind Contessa's New Machine)
As biographer George Sayer sums up the mood: “Most tutors encouraged their pupils above all to doubt.
Joseph Loconte (A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18)
When she was seven years old, her tutor asked her what a queen's role was. Her answer was laughed at, scorned and refused, for she said that a queen's role was 'Be just. Have courage. And rule.
Nikita Gill (Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters)
Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally—emotionally and spiritually—in order to create healthy relationships with others. Motivational pep talks and techniques for achieving success are useless if a person is weighed down by guilt, shame, depression, rejection, bitterness, or crushed self-esteem. Countless marriages land on the rocks of divorce because unhealthy people marry thinking that marriage, or their spouse, will make them whole. Wrong. If you’re not a healthy single person you won’t be a healthy married person. Part of God’s purpose for every human life is wholeness and health. I love the words of Jesus in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God knows we are the walking wounded in this world and He wants the opportunity to remove everything that limits us and heal every wound from which we suffer. Some wonder why God doesn’t just “fix” us automatically so we can get on with life. It’s because He wants our wounds to be our tutors to lead us to Him. Pain is a wonderful motivator and teacher! When the great Russian intellectual Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was released from the horrible Siberian work camp to which he was sent by Joseph Stalin, he said, “Thank you, prison!” It was the pain and suffering he endured that caused his eyes to be opened to the reality of the God of his childhood, to embrace his God anew in a personal way. When we are able to say thank you to the pain we have endured, we know we are ready to fulfill our purpose in life. When we resist the pain life brings us, all of our energy goes into resistance and we have none left for the pursuit of our purpose. It is the better part of wisdom to let pain do its work and shape us as it will. We will be wiser, deeper, and more productive in the long run. There is a great promise in the New Testament that says God comes to us to comfort us so we can turn around and comfort those who are hurting with the comfort we have received from Him (see 2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Make yourself available to God and to those who suffer. A large part of our own healing comes when we reach out with compassion to others.
Zig Ziglar (Better Than Good: Creating a Life You Can't Wait to Live)
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; When brewers mar their malt with water; When nobles are their tailors' tutors; No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors; When every case in law is right; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; When slanders do not live in tongues; Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; When usurers tell their gold i' the field; And bawds and whores do churches build; Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be used with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
The educational lineage is remarkable. Socrates was mentor and inspiration to Plato. Plato was mentor to Aristotle, and Aristotle went on to be the tutor of Alexander the Great. For a professed ignoramus, Socrates certainly cast a long shadow.
Natalie Haynes (The Ancient Guide to Modern Life)
The Atonist nobility knew it was impossible to organize and control a worldwide empire from Britain. The British Isles were geographically too far West for effective management. In order to be closer to the “markets,” the Atonist corporate executives coveted Rome. Additionally, by way of their armed Templar branch and incessant murderous “Crusades,” they succeeded making inroads further east. Their double-headed eagle of control reigned over Eastern and Western hemispheres. The seats of Druidic learning once existed in the majority of lands, and so the Atonist or Christian system spread out in similar fashion. Its agents were sent from Britain and Rome to many a region and for many a dark purpose. To this very day, the nobility of Europe and the east are controlled from London and Rome. Nothing has changed when it comes to the dominion of Aton. As Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe have proven, the Culdean monks, of whom we write, had been hired for generations as tutors to elite families throughout Europe. In their book The Knights Templar Revealed, the authors highlight the role played by Culdean adepts tutoring the super-wealthy and influential Catholic dynasties of Burgundy, Champagne and Lorraine, France. Research into the Templars and their affiliated “Salt Line” dynasties reveals that the seven great Crusades were not instigated and participated in for the reasons mentioned in most official history books. As we show here, the Templars were the military wing of British and European Atonists. It was their job to conquer lands, slaughter rivals and rebuild the so-called “Temple of Solomon” or, more correctly, Akhenaton’s New World Order. After its creation, the story of Jesus was transplanted from Britain, where it was invented, to Galilee and Judea. This was done so Christianity would not appear to be conspicuously Druidic in complexion. To conceive Christianity in Britain was one thing; to birth it there was another. The Atonists knew their warped religion was based on ancient Amenism and Druidism. They knew their Jesus, Iesus or Yeshua, was based on Druidic Iesa or Iusa, and that a good many educated people throughout the world knew it also. Their difficulty concerned how to come up with a believable king of light sufficiently appealing to the world’s many pagan nations. Their employees, such as St. Paul (Josephus Piso), were allowed to plunder the archive of the pagans. They were instructed to draw from the canon of stellar gnosis and ancient solar theologies of Egypt, Chaldea and Ireland. The archetypal elements would, like ingredients, simply be tossed about and rearranged and, most importantly, the territory of the new godman would be resituated to suit the meta plan.
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
You play with great skill," he said. "Thank you." "Is that your favorite piece?" "It's my most difficult," Helen said, "but not my favorite." "What do you play when there's no one to hear?" The gentle question, spoken in that accent with vowels as broad as his shoulders, caused Helen's stomach to tighten pleasurably. Perturbed by the sensation, she was slow to reply. "I don't remember the name of it. A piano tutor taught it to me long ago. For years I've tried to find out what it is, but no one has ever recognized the melody." "Play it for me." Calling it up from memory, she played the sweetly haunting chords, her hands gentle on the keys. The mournful chords never failed to stir her, making her heart ache for things she couldn't name. At the conclusion, Helen looked up from the keys and found Winterborne staring at her as if transfixed. He masked his expression, but not before she saw a mixture of puzzlement, fascination, and a hint of something hot and unsettling. "It's Welsh," he said. Helen shook her head with a laugh of wondering disbelief. "You know it?" "'A Ei Di'r Deryn Do.' Every Welshman is born knowing it." "What is it about?" "A lover who asks a blackbird to carry a message to his sweetheart." "Why can't he go to her himself?" Helen realized they were both speaking in hushed tones, as if they were exchanging secrets. "He can't find her. He's too deep in love- it keeps him from seeing clearly." "Does the blackbird find her?" "The song doesn't say," he said with a shrug. "But I must know the ending to the story," Helen protested. Winterborne laughed. It was an irresistible sound, rough-soft and sly. When he replied, his accent had thickened. "That's what comes o' reading novels, it is. The story needs no ending. That's not what matters." "What matters, then?" she dared to ask. His dark gaze held hers. "That he loves. That he's searching. Like the rest of us poor devils, he has no way of knowing if he'll ever have his heart's desire.
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
I started to turn toward the closest bus stop. Alex turned the other way. "Suivez-moi," he commanded. So I followed. "Bon.Je pensais que nous irions-" "Alex." He stopped. "Ella." "Don't do that, the immersion thing." "Mais, c'est tres important." "Alex." "Ella." "Please.I know you do this with other linguistic losers, but it makes me feel like I should have a great big L lipsticked onto my forehead in some swirly French calligraphy." "Do you often contemplate decorating yourself in such a manner?" I took a quick look down.I was wearing Sienna's turtleneck again, but my own jeans. There was a large blue sea horse from the art museum fountain running from my knee to the crease of my thigh. "Yeah," I admitted. "I do." "Quelle horreur!" he declared, eyes round in mock distress. "Casse-toi." He let out a bark of laughter that sounded just like a seal. "Tres bien, Mademoiselle Marino. Got any more?" "A couple.Frankie gave me a copy of How to Offend the French when I managed to get a B in 1B last year." "Well,I never trade insults on a first date. Not that kinda guy. But after two or three..." I liked that he'd said "date," instead of "tutoring session." Even if it wasn't and he totally didn't mean it. I couldn't help it.
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke, afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Editions: Philosophy))
Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.
Sean Covey (The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens)
Her great resentment was that she had had no education. When she was seventeen, she had announced that she was going to university—whereupon everyone had laughed at her. It turned out that you had to come from a good school, and pass examinations, before they would let you in. Maud had never been to school, and even though she could discuss politics with the great men of the land, a succession of governesses and tutors had completely failed to equip her to pass any sort of exam. She had cried and raged for days, and even now thinking about it could still put her in a foul mood. This was what made her a suffragette: she knew girls would never get a decent education until women had the vote.
Ken Follett (Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy #1))
I believe anyone can teach anyone anything. But I mean this in a specific sense. If you have two dedicated, reasonably intelligent people, one interested in teaching and the other wanting to learn, something great can happen. Think master and apprentice, mentor and protégé. For learning, small numbers win. The success of this one-on-one method is proven throughout history; many so-called prodigies were tutored by a parent or family friend (Einstein, Picasso, and Mozart all qualify). Yes, they had amazing, inherent talent, but they were still privately taught by people invested in their learning. Teaching is intimacy of the mind, and you can’t achieve that if you must work in large numbers.
Scott Berkun (Confessions of a Public Speaker)
One may ask, how is the great King Jaron described by those who know him? The answer rarely includes the word “great,” unless the word to follow is “fool,” though I have also heard “disappointment,” “frustration,” and “chance that he’ll get us all killed.” There are other answers, of course. “He was born to cause trouble, as if nothing else could make him happy.” My nursemaid said that, before I was even four years of age. I still believe her early judgments of me were unfair. Other than occasionally climbing over the castle balconies, and a failed attempt at riding a goat, what could I have possibly done to make her say such a thing? My childhood tutor: “Jaron has a brilliant mind, if one can pin him down long enough to teach him anything he doesn’t think he already knows. Which one rarely can.” It wasn’t that I thought I already knew everything. It was that I had already learned everything I cared to know from him, and besides, I didn’t see the importance of studying in the same way as my elder brother, Darius. He would become king. I would take a position among his advisors or assume leadership within our armies. My parents had long abandoned the idea of me becoming a priest, at the tearful request of our own priest, who once announced over the pulpit that I “belonged to the devils more than the saints.” To be fair, I had just set fire to the pulpit when he said it. Mostly by accident.
Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Captive Kingdom (The Ascendance Series, #4))
You have purpose in this life. God has you here for a reason. You may not know it, but He does. Your job is to find it. No one else can. You need to understand that your purpose may be great in the eyes of the world, or it may be commonplace and seemingly small. Your purpose might be your family, your children. Your purpose might be tutoring a child and changing their life. Your purpose might be the business you started. Your purpose might be cleaning up your block. Your purpose might be in the help you give others. Your purpose might be in the example you set. Only you and God know. Only you and God need to know. Search until you find it - and until then, act as if you have it, because you're wasting time otherwise.
Dan Crenshaw (Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage)
Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about ‘isms’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator.
C.S. Lewis (The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes)
So back to the three great prizes I was (and am) so proud of—it’s sobering to note the prize money: ten pounds for the March, the same for the Strathspey & Reel and five pounds for the Jig. Set against the cost of perhaps $3000 for the trip, it’s clear I was not doing this for the money. Knowing the tone of my comments to Gen. Richardson, it’s a delicious irony to hear him speak in the newspaper report of the “sporting way” in which I took the news. Still, I did manage to keep my head down during the entire imbroglio and for this I thank John MacFadyen, my tutor at the time, who called me aside that morning and gave me succinct advice: “Keep your bloody mouth shut.” I did. How right he was. The event soon blossomed into a full-blown scandal.
Bill Livingstone (Preposterous - Tales to Follow: A Memoir by Bill Livingstone)
The Montreux Palace Hotel was built in an age when it was thought that things would last. It is on the very shores of Switzerland's Lake Geneva, its balconies and iron railings look across the water, its yellow-ocher awnings are a touch of color in the winter light. It is like a great sanitarium or museum. There are Bechstein pianos in the public rooms, a private silver collection, a Salon de Bridge. This is the hotel where the novelist Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov and his wife, Véra, live. They have been here for 14 years. One imagines his large and brooding reflection in the polished glass of bookcases near the reception desk where there are bound volumes of the Illustrated London News from the year 1849 to 1887, copies of Great Expectations, The Chess Games of Greco and a book called Things Past, by the Duchess of Sermoneta. Though old, the hotel is marvelously kept up and, in certain portions, even modernized. Its business now is mainly conventions and, in the summer, tours, but there is still a thin migration of old clients, ancient couples and remnants of families who ask for certain rooms when they come and sometimes certain maids. For Nabokov, a man who rode as a child on the great European express trains, who had private tutors, estates, and inherited millions which disappeared in the Russian revolution, this is a return to his sources. It is a place to retire to, with Visconti's Mahler and the long-dead figures of La Belle Epoque, Edward VII, d'Annunzio, the munitions kings, where all stroll by the lake and play miniature golf, home at last.
James Salter
The True-Blue American" Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American, For he was a little boy who understood America, for he felt that he must Think about everything; because that’s all there is to think about, Knowing immediately the intimacy of truth and comedy, Knowing intuitively how a sense of humor was a necessity For one and for all who live in America. Thus, natively, and Naturally when on an April Sunday in an ice cream parlor Jeremiah Was requested to choose between a chocolate sundae and a banana split He answered unhesitatingly, having no need to think of it Being a true-blue American, determined to continue as he began: Rejecting the either-or of Kierkegaard, and many another European; Refusing to accept alternatives, refusing to believe the choice of between; Rejecting selection; denying dilemma; electing absolute affirmation: knowing in his breast The infinite and the gold Of the endless frontier, the deathless West. “Both: I will have them both!” declared this true-blue American In Cambridge, Massachusetts, on an April Sunday, instructed By the great department stores, by the Five-and-Ten, Taught by Christmas, by the circus, by the vulgarity and grandeur of Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, Tutored by the grandeur, vulgarity, and infinite appetite gratified and Shining in the darkness, of the light On Saturdays at the double bills of the moon pictures, The consummation of the advertisements of the imagination of the light Which is as it was—the infinite belief in infinite hope—of Columbus, Barnum, Edison, and Jeremiah Dickson.
Delmore Schwartz
The leftist is always a statist. He has all sorts of grievances and animosities against personal initiative and private enterprise. The notion of the state doing everything (until, finally, it replaces all private existence) is the Great Leftist Dream. Thus it is a leftist tendency to have city or state schools—or to have a ministry of education controlling all aspects of education. For example, there is the famous story of the French Minister of Education who pulls out his watch and, glancing at its face, says to his visitor, “At this moment in 5,431 public elementary schools they are writing an essay on the joys of winter.” Church schools, parochial schools, private schools, or personal tutors are not at all in keeping with leftist sentiments. The reasons for this attitude are manifold. Here not only is the delight in statism involved, but the idea of uniformity and equality is also decisive; i.e., the notion that social differences in education should be eliminated and all pupils should be given a chance to acquire the same knowledge, the same type of information in the same fashion and to the same degree. This should help them to think in identical or at least in similar ways. It is only natural that this should be especially true of countries where “democratism” as an ism is being pushed. There efforts will be made to ignore the differences in IQs and in personal efforts. Sometimes marks and report cards will be eliminated and promotion from one grade to the next be made automatic. It is obvious that from a scholastic viewpoint this has disastrous results, but to a true ideologist this hardly matters. When informed that the facts did not tally with his ideas, Hegel once severely replied, “Um so schlimmer für die Tatsachen”—all the worse for the facts. Leftism does not like religion for a variety of causes. Its ideologies, its omnipotent, all-permeating state wants undivided allegiance. With religion at least one other allegiance (to God), if not also allegiance to a Church, is interposed. In dealing with organized religion, leftism knows of two widely divergent procedures. One is a form of separation of Church and State which eliminates religion from the marketplace and tries to atrophy it by not permitting it to exist anywhere outside the sacred precincts. The other is the transformation of the Church into a fully state-controlled establishment. Under these circumstances the Church is asphyxiated, not starved to death. The Nazis and the Soviets used the former method; Czechoslovakia still employs the latter.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.
Philip Appleman
eh!” “We have,” said Eragon. “Is that all you have to say for yourself? Have you seen Elva yet? Have you seen what you did to that poor girl?” “Aye.” “Aye!” cried Angela. “How inarticulate can a person be? All this time in Ellesméra being tutored by the elves, and aye is the best you can manage? Let me tell you something, blockhead: anyone who is stupid enough to do what you did deserves—” Eragon clasped his hands behind his back and waited as Angela informed him, in many explicit, detailed, and highly inventive terms, exactly how great a blockhead he was; what kind of ancestors he must possess to be such a monumental blockhead—she even went so far as to insinuate that one of his grandparents had mated with an Urgal—and the quite hideous punishments he ought to receive for his idiocy. If anyone else had insulted him in that manner, Eragon would have challenged them to a duel, but he tolerated her spleen because he knew he could not judge her behavior by the same standards as
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
flickering green flame. “So you’ve returned, eh!” “We have,” said Eragon. “Is that all you have to say for yourself? Have you seen Elva yet? Have you seen what you did to that poor girl?” “Aye.” “Aye!” cried Angela. “How inarticulate can a person be? All this time in Ellesméra being tutored by the elves, and aye is the best you can manage? Let me tell you something, blockhead: anyone who is stupid enough to do what you did deserves—” Eragon clasped his hands behind his back and waited as Angela informed him, in many explicit, detailed, and highly inventive terms, exactly how great a blockhead he was; what kind of ancestors he must possess to be such a monumental blockhead—she even went so far as to insinuate that one of his grandparents had mated with an Urgal—and the quite hideous punishments he ought to receive for his idiocy. If anyone else had insulted him in that manner, Eragon would have challenged them to a duel, but he tolerated her spleen because he knew he could not judge her behavior by the same standards as
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
He has been described as combining a theoretical love of mankind with a practical contempt for men. Well-meaning, impressionable and egotistical, he was so good at playing a part that Napoleon later dubbed him ‘the Talma of the North’, and on another occasion ‘a shifty Byzantine’. He claimed that he would happily abolish serfdom if only civilization were more advanced, but never genuinely came close to doing so, any more than he ever carried through the codification of Russian law that he promised in 1801 or ratified the liberal constitution he had asked his advisor Count Mikhail Speranski to draw up a few years later. Although La Harpe had initially enthused Alexander about Napoleon’s reforms as First Consul, when the tutor returned from Paris he was so disillusioned that he wrote a book, Reflexions on the True Nature of the First Consulship for Life, that described Napoleon as ‘the most famous tyrant the world has produced’, which had a great effect on the young tsar. Since Alexander ultimately did more than any other individual to bring about Napoleon’s downfall, his emergence on to the European scene with his father’s assassination was a seminal moment.
Andrew Roberts (Napoleon: A Life)
As the driver pulled over to attend the injured animal, I sat and watched the sky - an oceanic mass of gray, with islands of steel blue - thinking, yes, certainly, birds must sleep at times while they fly. How ridiculous it was to think otherwise. Yet my brothers' tutor, a man from Oxford with red eyebrows, had informed me the previous morning that no such thing could occur. Such a thing, he'd opined, would be an affront to God, who had blessed birds with the ability to sleep and the ability to fly, but not the ability to sleep while flying or fly while sleeping. Absurd! Moreover, he went on, were it to be case, each morning we would find at our feet heaps of dead birds that had smashed into rooftops or trees in the night. Night after night we would be awakened by this ornithological cacophony, this smashing of beaks against masonry, this violence of feathers and bones. It will not do, he said, to too greatly admire the mysteries of nature. But I remembered that sparrow on the riverbank and secretly held that the world was not so easily explained by a tutor's reason. Indeed, it was then that I first formed the opinion - if childishly, idly - that a person should trust to her own good sense and nature's impenetrable wisdom.
Danielle Dutton (Margaret the First)
From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Berossos compiled his History from the temple archives of Babylon (reputed to have contained "public records" that had been preserved for "over 150,000 years"). He has passed on to us a description of Oannes as a "monster," or a "creature." However, what Berossos has to say is surely more suggestive of a man wearing some sort of fish-costume--in short, some sort of disguise. The monster, Berossos tells us: "had the whole body of a fish, but underneath and attached to the head of the fish there was another head, human, and joined to the tail of the fish, feet like those of a man, and it had a human voice ... At the end of the day, this monster, Oannes, went back to the sea and spent the night. It was amphibious, able to live both on land and in the sea ... Later, other monsters similar to Oannes appeared." Bearing in mind that the curious containers carried by Oannes and the Apkallu sages are also depicted on one of the megalithic pillars at Göbekli Tepe (and [...] as far afield as ancient Mexico as well), what are we to make of all this? The mystery deepends when we follow the Mesopotamian traditions further. In summary, Oannes and the brotherhood of Apkallu sages are depicted as tutoring mankind for many thousands of years. It is during this long passage of time that the five antediluvian cities arise, the centers of a great civilization, and that kingship is "lowered from heaven." Prior to the first appearance of Oannes, Berossos says, the people of Mesopotamia 'lived in a lawless manner, like the beasts of a field.
Graham Hancock (Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization)
In this short philosophical novel he completely undermined the kind of optimism about humanity and the universe that Pope and Leibniz had expressed, and he did it in such an entertaining way that the book became an instant bestseller. Wisely Voltaire left his name off the title page, otherwise its publication would have landed him in prison again for making fun of religious beliefs. Candide is the central character. His name suggests innocence and purity. At the start of the book, he is a young servant who falls hopelessly in love with his master's daughter, Cunégonde, but is chased out of her father's castle when he is caught in a compromising position with her. From then on, in a fast-moving and often fantastical tale, he travels through real and imaginary countries with his philosophy tutor Dr Pangloss, until he finally meets up with his lost love Cunégonde again, though by now she is old and ugly. In a series of comical episodes Candide and Pangloss witness terrible events and encounter a range of characters along the way, all of whom have themselves suffered terrible misfortunes. Voltaire uses the philosophy tutor, Pangloss, to spout a caricatured version of Leibniz's philosophy, which the writer then pokes fun at. Whatever happens, whether it is a natural disaster, torture, war, rape, religious persecution or slavery, Pangloss treats it as further confirmation that they live in the best of all possible worlds. Rather than causing him to rethink his beliefs, each disaster just increases his confidence that everything is for the best and this is how things had to be to produce the most perfect situation. Voltaire takes great delight in revealing Pangloss' refusal to see what is in front of him, and this is meant to mock Leibniz's optimism. But to be fair to Leibniz, his point wasn't that evil doesn't occur, but rather that the evil that does exist was needed to bring about the best possible world. It does, however, suggest that there is so much evil in the world that it is hardly likely that Leibniz was right – this can't be the minimum needed to achieve a good result. There is just too much pain and suffering in the world for that to be true. In
Nigel Warburton (A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories))
Standing, balanced precariously on the narrow top of a drainpipe, you had to give a good leap up to grab hold of the narrow ledge, and then swing your whole body up and over. It took some guts, and a cool head for heights. Get it wrong and the fall was a long one, onto concrete. In an attempt to make it harder, the school security officers had put barbed wire all around the lip of the roof to ensure such climbs were “impossible.” (This was probably installed after Ran Fiennes’s escapades onto the dome all those years earlier.) But in actual fact the barbed wire served to help me as a climber. It gave me something else to hold on to. Once on the roof, then came the crux of the climb. Locating the base of the lightning conductor was the easy bit, the tough bit was then committing to it. It held my weight; and it was a great sense of achievement clambering into the lead-lined small bell tower, silhouetted under the moonlight, and carving the initials BG alongside the RF of Ran Fiennes. Small moments like that gave me an identity. I wasn’t just yet another schoolboy, I was fully alive, fully me, using my skills to the max. And in those moments I realized I simply loved adventure. I guess I was discovering that what I was good at was a little off-the-wall, but at the same time recognizing a feeling in the pit of my stomach that said: Way to go, Bear, way to go. My accomplice never made it past the barbed wire, but waited patiently for me at the bottom. He said it had been a thoroughly sickening experience to watch, which in my mind made it even more fun. On the return journey, we safely crossed one college house garden and had silently traversed half of the next one. We were squatting behind a bush in the middle of this housemaster’s lawn, waiting to do the final leg across. The tutor’s light was on, with him burning the midnight oil marking papers probably, when he decided it was time to let his dog out for a pee. The dog smelled us instantly, went bananas, and the tutor started running toward the commotion. Decision time. “Run,” I whispered, and we broke cover together and legged it toward the far side of the garden. Unfortunately, the tutor in question also happened to be the school cross-country instructor, so he was no slouch. He gave chase at once, sprinting after us across the fifty-meter dash. A ten-foot wall was the final obstacle and both of us, powered by adrenaline, leapt up it in one bound. The tutor was a runner but not a climber, and we narrowly avoided his grip and sprinted off into the night. Up a final drainpipe, back into my open bedroom window, and it was mission accomplished. I couldn’t stop smiling all through the next day.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
But…but that’s tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?” He laughed. “Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr’s halo. It’s not as though I’m blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we’ve discussed. And as for beauty…I don’t need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they’re uncommonly lovely.” “No one has lavender eyes.” “Don’t they?” His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, “Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don’t they call it the iris?” Sophia nodded. “The iris.” He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. “An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent.” She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. “But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…” She gave him a sharp look. He snapped his fingers. “There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning.” Sophia felt a hot blush spreading from her bosom to her throat. He smiled and reclined in his chair. “I don’t need to know the color of your hair to see that it’s smooth and shiny as silk. I don’t need to know whether it’s yellow or orange or red to spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how it would feel brushing against my bare skin.” Opening his book to the marked page, he continued, “And don’t get me started on your lips, sweet. If I endeavored to discover the precise shade of red or pink or violet they are, I might never muster the concentration for anything else.” He turned a leaf of his book, then fell silent. Sophia stared at her canvas. Her pulse pounded in her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, channeling down between her shoulder blades, and a hot, itchy longing pooled at the cleft of her legs. Drat him. He’d known she was taunting him with her stories. And now he sat there in an attitude of near-boredom, making love to her with his teasing, colorless words in a blatant attempt to fluster her. It was as though they were playing a game of cards, and he’d just raised the stakes. Sophia smiled. She always won at cards. “Balderdash,” she said calmly. He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. “No one has violet lips.” “Don’t they?” She laid aside her palette and crossed her arms on the table. “The slope of your nose is quite distinctive.” His lips quirked in a lopsided grin. “Really.” “Yes.” She leaned forward, allowing her bosom to spill against her stacked arms. His gaze dipped, but quickly returned to hers. “The way you have that little bump at the ridge…It’s proving quite a challenge.” “Is that so?” He bent his head and studied his book. Sophie stared at him, waiting one…two…three beats before he raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose. Quite satisfactory progress, that. Definite beginnings of fluster.
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
Jasnah sniffed. “Your tutors were idiots. Youthful immaturity is one of the cosmere’s great catalysts for change, Shallan.
Brandon Sanderson (The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1))
When he was twenty-four, André floated down to Saigon and returned with a wife standing upon his prow. Eugenia was the eldest child of Pierre Cazeau, the stately, arrogant owner of the Hôtel Continental, on rue Catinat. She was also deaf. Her tutors had spent the first thirteen years of her life attempting to teach her how to speak like a hearing person, as was dictated by the popular pedagogy of the time. Her tongue was pressed, her cheeks prodded, countless odd intonations were coaxed forth from her lips. Cumbersome hearing horns were thrust into her ears, spiraling upward like ibex horns. It was a torture she finally rejected for the revolutionary freedom of sign, which she taught herself from an eighteenth-century dictionary by Charles-Michel de l’Épée that she had stumbled upon accidentally on the shelf of a Saigon barbershop.1 Based on the grammatical rules of spoken language, L’Épée’s Methodical Sign System was unwieldy and overly complex: many words, instead of having a sign on their own, were composed of a combination of signs. “Satisfy” was formed by joining the signs for “make” and “enough.” “Intelligence” was formed by pairing “read” with “inside.” And “to believe” was made by combining “feel,” “know,” “say,” “not see,” plus another sign to denote its verbiage. Though his intentions may have been noble, L’Epée’s system was inoperable in reality, and so Eugenia modified and shortened the language. In her hands, “belief” was simplified into “feel no see.” Verbs, nouns, and possession were implied by context. 1 “So unlikely as to approach an impossibility,” writes Røed-Larsen of this book’s discovery, in Spesielle ParN33tikler (597). One could not quite call her beautiful, but the enforced oral purgatory of her youth had left her with an understanding of life’s inherent inclination to punish those who least deserve it. Her black humor in the face of great pain perfectly balanced her new husband’s workmanlike nature. She had jumped at the opportunity to abandon the Saigon society that had silently humiliated her, gladly accepting the trials of life on a backwater, albeit thriving, plantation. Her family’s resistance to sending their eldest child into the great unknowable cauldron of the jungle was only halfhearted—they were in fact grateful to be unburdened of the obstacle that had kept them from marrying off their two youngest (and much more desirable) daughters. André painstakingly mastered Eugenia’s language. Together, they communed via a fluttering dance of fingertips to palms, and their dinners on the Fig. 4.2. L’Épée’s Methodical Sign System From de l’Épée, C.-M. (1776), Institution des sourds et muets: par la voie des signes méthodiques, as cited in Tofte-Jebsen, B., Jeg er Raksmey, p. 61 veranda were thus rich, wordless affairs, confluences of gestures beneath the ceiling fan, the silence broken only by the clink of a soup spoon, the rustle of a servant clearing the table, or the occasional shapeless moan that accentuated certain of her sentences, a relic from her years of being forced to speak aloud.
Anonymous
Practice 11 Keep a Role Model in Mind: Contemplate the Stoic Sage “’We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.’ This . . . is Epicurus’ advice, and in giving it he has given us a guardian and a moral tutor—and not without reason, either: misdeeds are greatly diminished if a witness is always standing near intending doers.” – Seneca
Jonas Salzgeber (The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness)
Why do you like him so much?” Lada asked, the wonder of the night above her stealing the sting from her question. Mehmed was quiet for a long time before answering. “That day you found me in the garden? Molla Gurani is the tutor who struck me.” “You should have had him killed,” Lada said. Mehmed laughed softly. “It sounds odd, but I am glad he hit me. Before him, no one, no tutor, no nurse ever stood up to me. They let me rage and rant, allowed me to be a terror. The more I pushed, the more they looked the other way. My father never saw me, my mother could not be bothered to take so much as a meal with me. No one cared who I was or what I became.” Lada tried to shift away from the thing poking into her heart and making her so uncomfortable, but there were no rocks beneath her. “And then Molla Gurani came. That first day, when he hit me, I could not believe it. I wanted to kill him. But what he said the next day changed me forever. He told me I was born for greatness, placed in this world by the hand of God, and he would never let me forget or abandon that trust.” Mehmed shrugged, his shoulder pressing against Lada’s. “Molla Gurani cared who I was and who I would become. I have tried ever since to live up to that.” Lada swallowed hard against the painful lump that had built in her throat. She could not blame Mehmed for latching on to a man who saw him, who demanded more of him and helped him attain it. It was a lonely, cold thing to live without expectations. She unwrapped her hand from where it clutched the pouch at her heart and cleared her throat. “He is still the most boring man alive.” Mehmed laughed, while Radu remained far away and silent.
Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
We might all agree that everyone would be better off if there were less positional competition. It’s stressful, it’s wasteful, and it distorts people’s lives. Parents wanting only the best for their child encourage her to study hard so she can get into a good college. But everyone is doing that. So the parents push harder. But so does everybody else. So they send their child to after-school enrichment programs and educational summer camps. And so does everyone else. So now they borrow money to switch to private school. Again, others follow. So they nag at their youngster to become a great musician or athlete or something that will make her distinctive. They hire tutors and trainers. But, of course, so does everyone else, or at least everyone who has not gone broke trying to keep up. The poor child, meanwhile, has been so tortured by parental aspirations for her that she loses interest in all the things they have forced her to do for the sake of her future.
Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less)
[Peter the Great] also wanted women to take off their veils and mingle with men at social gatherings. He even wanted them to have tutors and be educated like men.
Susan Wise Bauer (Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners (The Story of the World, #3))
You have purpose in this life. God has you here for a reason. You may not know it, but He does. Your job is to find it. No one else can. You need to understand that your purpose may be great in the eyes of the world, or it may be commonplace and seemingly small. Your purpose might be your family, your children. Your purpose might be tutoring a child and changing their life. Your purpose might be the business you started. Your purpose might be cleaning up your block. Your purpose might be in the help you give others. Your purpose might be in the example you set. Only you and God know. Only you and God need to know. Search until you find it—and until then, act as if you have it, because you’re wasting time otherwise. ‘You were designed to use your reason and your natural gifts—and to cultivate those assets toward fulfillment of a higher end,’ as my friend Ben Shapiro writes.
Dan Crenshaw (Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage)
As today’s young people seek a more coherent sense of identity, the stress that formerly hit them in college, or even after college, now begins in middle school (or younger). By high school, many middle- and upper-class teenagers juggle digital calendars jammed with extracurricular activities that begin as early as 6:00 a.m., after-school study sessions, college entrance exam tutoring, and sports team practices that leave them trailing home after 10:00 p.m.11 Followed by two to three hours of homework.12 Athletes used to specialize in a single sport in high school; now that starts in elementary school. Previously, musicians and artists could freely dabble in various media and instruments throughout high school; present-day teenagers have to claim their craft in middle school. No longer can a kid flirt with a handful of hobbies, discovering various facets of their personality and passions, before choosing what they love. There’s so little time for thoughtful and measured exploration in high school that young adults end up exploring their skills and passions well into their twenties. A recent study showed that 13- to 17-year-olds are more likely to feel “extreme stress” than adults.13 Even more alarming is that the adults closest to young people are often blind to their heightened stress levels. Approximately 20 percent of teenagers confess that they worry “a great deal” about current and future life events. But only 8 percent of the parents of these same teenagers report that their child is experiencing a great deal of stress.14 Parents often don’t realize the constant heat felt by adolescents, increasing the pressure for them to figure out who they are and what’s important to them. After adolescence, emerging adults race from the proverbial stress-filled pot into the stress-fueled fire.15 Fewer college students are reporting “above-average” health since this question was first asked in 1985.16
Kara Powell (Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church)
I haven’t even checked to see if my Heart-2-Heart pal wrote back.” Madison plucked at the fuzzy strands of yarn on her pillow. “You should. I love this program! We can tell each other anything. It’s so great!” “And this guy’s name is Blue?” Piper’s voice sounded doubtful. “I don’t remember any kid at school named Blue. There was that one guy we called Green in our chem lab, remember? But I think we called him that because his last name was Green and we could never remember his first name.” Madison giggled even more. She was feeling like a fizzy soda pop, bubbly all over. “Oh, Piper, his name isn’t really Blue. That’s just his nickname.” “Do you have a nickname?” “Of course,” Madison said. “But I don’t want to tell you what it is. You’ll think it’s ridiculous.” “I can’t believe you won’t tell me,” Piper protested. “I’m your BFF. We share everything!” “I know…”” “Come on, tell me!” Piper pleaded. “Look, I told you about the time I wet my pants in second grade, and that I had a total crush on Mr. Proctor, our fifth-grade teacher. And last year, when I--” “This is different, Piper,” Madison tried to explain. “We can tell our deepest secrets to our Heart-2-Heart pal because they don’t know who we are.” “I just can’t believe this,” Piper continued in a really hurt voice. “Didn’t I tell you about that D I almost got in Algebra I and the secret tutor I had to hire to bring up my grade? God, I even told you about that mole on my butt that I had to have removed. If that’s not a deep secret, I don’t know what is.” “Okay, okay!” Madison sat up. “I’ll tell you. It’s Pinky.” There was a long pause. “Pinky? That’s ridiculous.” “See?” Madison shouted into the phone. “I knew you’d say that.” She got up and crossed to her vanity mirror. She tousled her hair with one hand to make it stand up. “It had to do with dyeing my hair pink.” There was an even longer pause. “You’re not going to do that, are you?” Piper asked quietly. “Because I don’t think it will help the campaign. Oh, it might steal a few votes from Jeremy--but do we really need them? I’m not sure.” “Piper, relax,” Madison said. “I was just joking about doing it.
Jahnna N. Malcolm (Perfect Strangers (Love Letters, #1))
It's an established fact that the very few naturally gifted "born teachers" are enormously more effective than the great mass of those in the teaching profession who teach with care and attention and even with good new ideas, but without the charisma and the flair that distinguish the best teachers as well as the best actors. In my ideal school of the future, children would assemble each afternoon for sports, music, and club activities that require group interaction. The mornings would be reserved for individual study, probably at home. The child would be in a private room in one-on-one interaction with a "tutor," the realistic, holographic presentation of an actual human being, one of the rare, inspiring, one-in-a-thousand superbly gifted teachers. Brief lectures, personally directed to the student, with lots of eye contact, would be aided by all possible tricks of costuming and special effects, but those lectures would have been staged as carefully as a dramatic movie
Gerard K. O'Neill (2081)
Aristotle, means "the best purpose." In 384 BC he was born in Stagira, Greece on the Peninsula of Chalcidice in central Macedonia, located on the northern coast of the Aegean Sea. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age and moved to Athens as a teenager, where he continued his education at Plato’s Academy. After completing his education, Aristotle married Pythias, who bore him a daughter that they also named Pythias. In 343 BC, Philip II employed Aristotle to become the tutor to his son Alexander, who later became a great general. By 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his own school, known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died. Following her death Aristotle wrote most of his work, of which only remnants have survived. His most important treatises included Poetry, Politics, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics and the meaning of a soul. Aristotle spent his life studying and teaching almost every subject possible at the time and added a great deal, to most of them. His resulting works became the encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. Near the end of his life, Alexander and Aristotle unfortunately became enemies resulting from Alexander's relationship with the Persians. The details of Aristotle’s life are sketchy at best, and the biographies that Aristotle wrote remain speculative. Although Aristotle contributed to the knowledge of the day, historians can only totally agree on very few things.
Hank Bracker (Suppressed I Rise)
My child is doing great—so says the school—but it’s only because we do so much outside tutoring and give him so much homework help. What should we do? Stop. It was so incredibly difficult for me to take this advice, but unless you allow the school to see how their program is—or is not—working, it is hard, practically speaking, for the team to justify changing it.
Greer Gurland (How to Advocate Successfully for Your Child: What Every Parent Should Know About Special Education Law)
In one of our conversations, she told me about Finland’s development of sisu, a rough cognate for grit. Etymologically, sisu denotes a person’s viscera, their “intestines (sisucunda).” It is defined as “having guts,” intentional, stoic, constant bravery in the face of adversity. 21 For Finns, sisu is a part of national culture, forged through their history of war with Russia and required by the harsh climate. 22 In this Nordic country, pride is equated with endurance. When Finnish mountain climber Veikka Gustafsson ascended a peak in Antarctica, it was named Mount Sisu. The fortitude to withstand war and foreign occupations is lyrically heralded in the Finnish epic poem, The Kalevala. 23 Even the saunas—two million, one for every three Finns in a country of approximately five and a half million—involve fortitude: A sauna roast is often followed by a nude plunge into the ice-cold Baltic Sea. If Iceland is happier than it has any right to be considering the hours the country spends plunged in darkness each year, Finland’s past circumstances, climate, and developed culture have turned it into one of the grittiest. Finland’s educational system is also currently ranked first, ahead of South Korea, now at number two. 24 The United States is midway down the list. 25 In Finland, there is no after-school tutoring or training, no “miracle pedagogy” in the classrooms, where students are on a first-name basis with their teachers, all of whom have master’s degrees. There is also more “creative play.” 26 Perhaps the tradition of sisu and play, I suspect, are part of the larger, unstated reason for its success. 27 “Wouldn’t it be great if you heard people talking about how they were going to do something to build their grit?” Duckworth asked.
Sarah Lewis (The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery)
The DUCE diverted funds intended for the Fiume adventure, and used them for His own election campaign. He was arrested for the illegal possession of arms, sent parcel bombs to the Archbishop of Milan and its mayor, and after election was, as is well-known, responsible for the assassination of Di Vagno and Matteoti. Since then He has been responsible for the murders of Don Mizzoni Amendola, the Rosselli brothers, and the journalist Piero Gobetti, quite apart from the hundreds who have been the victims of His squadistri in Ferrara, Ravenna and Trieste, and the thousands who have perished in foreign places whose conquest was useless and pointless. We Italians remain eternally grateful for this, and consider that so much violence has made us a superior race, just as the introduction of revolvers into Parliament and the complete destruction of constitutional democracy have raised our institutions to the greatest possible heights of civilisation. Since the illegal seizure of power, Italy has known an average of five acts of political violence per diem, the DUCE has decreed that 1922 is the new Annus Domini, and He was pretended to be a Catholic in order to dupe the Holy Father into supporting Him against the Communists, even though He really is one Himself. He has completely suborned the press by wrecking the premises of dissident newspapers and journals. In 1923 he invaded Corfu for no apparent reason, and was forced to withdraw by the League of Nations. In 1924 He gerrymandered the elections, and He has oppressed minorities in the Tyrol and the North-East. He sent our soldiers to take part in the rape of Somalia and Libya, drenching their hands in the blood of innocents, He has doubled the number of the bureaucracy in order to tame the bourgeoisie, He has abolished local government, interfered with the judiciary, and purportedly has divinely stopped the flow of lava on Mt Etna by a mere act of will. He has struck Napoleonic attitudes whilst permitting Himself to be used to advertise Perugina chocolates, He has shaved his head because He is ashamed to be seen to be going bald, He has been obliged to hire a tutor to teach Him table manners, He has introduced the Roman salute as a more hygienic alternative to the handshake, He pretends not to need spectacles, He has a repertoire of only two facial expression, He stands on a concealed podium whilst making speeches because He is so short, He pretends to have studied economics with Pareto, and He has assumed infallibility and encouraged the people to carry His image in marches, as though He were a saint. He is a saint, of course. He has (and who are we to disagree?) declared Himself greater than Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, Dante, Michelangelo, Washington, Lincoln, and Bonaparte, and He has appointed ministers to serve Him who are all sycophants, renegades, racketeers, placemen, and shorter than He is. He is afraid of the Evil Eye and has abolished the second person singular as a form of address. He has caused Toscanini to be beaten up for refusing to play 'Giovinezza', and He has appointed academicians to prove that all great inventions were originally Italian and that Shakespeare was the pseudonym of an Italian poet. He has built a road through the site of the forum, demolishing fifteen ancient churches, and has ordered a statue of Hercules, eighty metres high, which will have His own visage, and which so far consists of a part of the face and one gigantic foot, and which cannot be completed because it has already used up one hundred tons of metal.
Louis de Bernières (Corelli's Mandolin)
A new day has dawned. New Secondary Skills are unlocked: Blades: Your many battles have increased your effectiveness with swords and other bladed weapons. Expressive Magic Theory: You now know more about shaping aetherium with your words. Somatic Magic Theory: You have mastered an Improvised Spellform and learned more of magic in the process. Somatic Battle-Weaving: Each action you take, from the stroke of a sword to a dodge, can contribute to a Spellform in the heat of battle. Dramatic Magic Theory: Combining Somatic and Expressive magics is not easy, but you now know more of this difficult path. Aetheric Channeling: Masters of magic long ago learned the secrets of how aether changes states and moves through the Aura. You have taken steps to recreate that knowledge. Critical Breakthrough! You have progressed very far in a short time, understanding the Aura in ways many arcanologists thought lost to time. Aetheric Sensing: Through innovative use, you have advanced in this Skill without the need for a tutor. Aetheric Projection: Few wand users ever go beyond simple bolts of energy, but you recreated an entirely different weapon from raw aether. Critical Breakthrough! Frenzied use of advanced techniques has ingrained them in you, making even such advanced uses seem trivial. Skill greatly increased. Aura Mastery: You have learned how to fill your Aura with aetherium while still allowing aether to flow into you. Provides damage reduction and allows use of Somatic spellforms without an implement. Greatly increases the aetherium costs of such spells. May have other benefits as well. Korrash
Gregory Blackburn (Unbound (Arcana Unlocked #1))
As Alexander quickly matured and embarked upon adolescence, his father realized that he needed a skilled tutor to instruct his son not only in the physical arena, but also in the theatre of the mind. For King Philip only one man was worthy of this task: the Greek Philosopher and prolific writer, Aristotle.
Henry Freeman (Alexander The Great: A History From Beginning To End (One Hour History Military Generals #1))
When Yan He was appointed tutor to the crown prince of Wei, son of Duke Ling, he went to consult with Qu Boyu. “Here is a man who is just naturally no good. If I find no way to contain him, he will endanger my state, but if I do try to contain him, he will endanger my life. His cleverness allows him to understand the crimes people commit, but not why they were driven to commit these crimes.10 What should I do?” Peng Boyu said, “Good question! Be careful and cautious and rectify yourself! Be compromising in appearance and harmonious in mind. But even these measures can present problems. Don’t let the external compromise get inside you, and don’t let your inner harmony show itself externally. If you let the external compromise get inside you, it will topple you, destroy you, collapse you, cripple you. If the harmony in your heart shows itself externally, it will lead to reputation and renown, until you are haunted and plagued by them. If he’s playing the baby, play baby with him. If he’s being lawless and unrestrained, be lawless and unrestrained with him. If his behavior is unbounded and shapeless, be unbounded and shapeless with him. You must master this skill to the point of flawlessness. Don’t you know the story of the praying mantis? It flailed its pincers around to stop an oncoming chariot wheel, not realizing the task was beyond its powers. This is how it is for those with ‘great talents.’ Be careful, be cautious! If you irritate him by flaunting your talents, you will be in more or less the same position. Don’t you know how the tiger trainer handles it? He doesn’t feed the beast live animals for fear of arousing its lust for killing. He doesn’t feed it uncut sides of meat for fear of arousing its lust for dismemberment. He carefully times out the feedings and comprehends the creature’s propensity for rage. The tiger is a different species from man but can be tamed through affection for its feeder. The ones it kills are the ones who cross it. However, a man who loves horses even to the point of gathering their shit and piss in jeweled boxes may still get his skull or chest kicked in if he smacks away a mosquito on the unbridled animal at the wrong time. Despite the best intentions, (4:17) his solicitousness backfires on him. Can you afford to be careless?
Zhuangzi (Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett Classics))
I was always asked to be happy, even as everything around me emphasized the virtues of suffering. Monks flagellated themselves into woodcuts, stripping themselves raw before God. The Tragedies instructed me to count no man happy before he was dead. I asked my confessor whether there was wisdom in these words. He said to me, "You are not yet a man Philip. You are young. Be joyous in your youth." Was I expected to be happy now, knowing that someday I was destined for sorrow? "Yes," he replied, as if that made perfect sense and I was simply too young to understand why. But the more I understood of my position, the expectations upon me, the scarcer that hope became. It was the map that haunted me most, hung above the desk of my tutor's room. There was shown the hollowing of France, in great strokes of red ink: all the land once ours, snatched with hungry hands by England during my father's reign. It was the fruit of his folly, a pair of shackles waiting to descend. My lifetime would be spent redeeming his lifetime of surrender, and no amount of cinnamon could change that.
Natasha Siegel (Solomon's Crown)
Learning French made fun and easy! Talk In French is founded by the language enthusiast, Frédéric BIBARD, a motivating French tutor and traveler. Find us and explore some great French learning resources and free gifts also!
Frederic Bibard
equaled her brilliant sister in the classroom. She used to pretend it didn’t matter during the years she and Abigail attended Miss Madinsky’s school together. Alongside the pampered daughters of judges and senators and foreign dignitaries, she would sit with her hands folded atop her desk, her mouth reciting words by rote while her mind wandered a thousand miles away, to distant lands and places in the heart where all fathers were attentive, all lessons were easy and all mothers were alive. Only as an adult did she understand the price of her inability. To her great shame, Helena had never learned to read. Words on a page had always been indecipherable symbols. As a girl, she got by on charm and pretense. She had learned early on that a brilliant smile, a flattering remark, a pointed question had the power to divert even the sturdiest tutor from his task. As a young woman, she found ways to circumvent her shortcoming. There was always someone—her father’s secretary, the housekeeper, her sister—to read things aloud to her because she always managed to be too tired, too busy, too…something. An excuse always came to mind. Soon after William was born, she vowed to learn, and she had even studied old school primers and practiced drawing the letters
Susan Wiggs (ENCHANTED AFTERNOON: A Regency Romance (The Calhoun Chronicles Book 4))
The US administration constantly sought to advance its misplaced messianic quest for a magical peace via “courageous” acts on the part of Israel’s leaders, even if these acts meant political suicide. Would American presidents consider taking “courageous actions,” such as, to use a historical example, far-reaching concessions to the Soviet Union if Congress could remove them from office the next day? Of course not. Yet this didn’t prevent American presidents and their envoys from attempting to tutor Israeli prime ministers, especially me, about the need for “courage” and “leadership.” I was being lectured about courage from people who had neither risked their own lives in war nor their political lives. When such “leadership” wasn’t forthcoming from me, this was proof of a clear failure of character by a politician guided solely by cynical and personal interests. The conflict between national necessity and political survival is as old as democracy itself, but it didn’t apply here. What stood in the way of the concessions I was pressed to make was simply my belief that they would greatly endanger Israel. So why make them? This too has eluded many American pundits. They might have noted that when I did believe certain measures were vital for Israel’s future, I didn’t hesitate to take them.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
He was making up for it now, even if only to himself, because he still felt impelled to put on a good face for the world, it seemed bad manners to do otherwise. 'If you can't say something nice.', his mother had tutored him, 'then don't say anything at all.' The hair was real. Crystal had no idea who it had once belonged to. She'd worried it might have come from a corpse but her hairdresser said, 'Nah, from a temple in India. The women shave their heads for some kind of religious thing and the monks sell it.' That's how Crystal referred to it - 'Got your head stuck in a book again, Harry?' It would be funny if his head did actually get stuck in a book. Her heart wasn't shattered, just cracked, although cracked was bad enough. "Are you Mrs Bragg?' Reggie asked. "Maybe," the woman said. Well, you either are or you aren't. Reggie thought. You're not Schrodinger's cat. What do you call a nest of lesbians? A dyke eyrie. "Great,' she said, so he knew she wasn't listening. An increasing number of people, Jackson had noticed lately, were not listening to him. Dogs, you know, stay by their master's side after they've died. Fido, Hachiko, Ruswrap, Old Shep, Squeak, Spot. There was a list on Wikipedia. I am the repository of useless knowledge. Jackson had never really seen the point of existential angst. if you didn't like something you changed it and if you couldn't change it you sucked it up and soldiered on, one foot after the other. ('Remind me not to come to you for therapy,' Julia said.) This was better, Jackson thought, all he had to do was utilize the lyrics from country songs, they contained better advice than anything he could conjure up himself. Best to avoid Hank, though - 'I'm so lonesome I could cry. I'll never get out of this world alive. I don't care if tomorrow never comes. Poor old Hank, not good mental fodder of a man who had just tried to jump off a cliff. 'Diaeresis - the two little dots above the "e", its not an umlaut. Reggie thought if a day would ever goes by when she is not disappointed in people. "Jesus Christ, Crystal,' he said, dropping the baseball bat and pulling off his shoes, prepare to jump in and save Tommy. So he could kill him later.
Kate Atkinson (Big Sky (Jackson Brodie, #5))
Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief by David Winston and Steven Maimes An in-depth discussion of adaptogens with detailed monographs for many adaptogenic, nervine, and nootropic herbs. Adaptogens in Medical Herbalism: Elite Herbs and Natural Compounds for Mastering Stress, Aging, and Chronic Disease by Donald R. Yance A scientifically based herbal and nutritional program to master stress, improve energy, prevent degenerative disease, and age gracefully. Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients into Foods and Remedies That Heal by Rosalee de la Forêt This book offers an introduction to herbal energetics for the beginner, plus a host of delicious and simple recipes for incorporating medicinal plants into meals. Rosalee shares short chapters on a range of herbs, highlighting scientific research on each plant. The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry by Ann Armbrecht Forbes In a world awash with herbal books, this is a much-needed reference, central to the future of plant medicine itself. Ann weaves a complex tapestry through the story threads of the herbal industry: growers, gatherers, importers, herbalists, and change-making business owners and non-profits. As interest in botanical medicine surges and the world’s population grows, medicinal plant sustainability is paramount. A must-read for any herbalist. The Complete Herbal Tutor: The Ideal Companion for Study and Practice by Anne McIntyre Provides extensive herbal profiles and materia medica; offers remedy suggestions by condition and organ system. This is a great reference guide for the beginner to intermediate student. Foundational Herbcraft by jim mcdonald jim mcdonald has a gift for explaining energetics in a down-to-earth and engaging way, and this 200-page PDF is a compilation of his writings on the topic. jim’s categorization of herbal actions into several groups (foundational actions, primary actions, and secondary actions) adds clarity and depth to the discussion. Access the printable PDF and learn more about jim’s work here. The Gift of Healing Herbs: Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life by Robin Rose Bennett A beautiful tour of some of our most healing herbs, written in lovely prose. Full of anecdotes, recipes, and simple rituals for connecting with plants. Herbal Healing for Women: Simple Home Remedies for All Ages by Rosemary Gladstar Thorough and engaging materia medica. This was the only book Juliet brought with her on a three-month trip to Central America and she never tired of its pages. Information is very accessible with a lot of recipes and formulas. Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health: 175 Teas, Tonics, Oils, Salves, Tinctures, and Other Natural Remedies for the Entire Family by Rosemary Gladstar Great beginner reference and recipe treasury written by the herbal fairy godmother herself. The Modern Herbal by Maude Grieve This classic text was first published in 1931 and contains medicinal, culinary, cosmetic, and economic properties, plus cultivation and folklore of herbs. Available for free online.
Socdartes
Solon and Pisistratus were very fond of one another. We are told they entered into a love affair when Pisistratus was a good-looking lad in his teens. Despite a wide gap of thirty years between them, this is not implausible. Solon was highly sexed, if we may judge from his poetry, where he writes of the delights of falling in love “with a boy in the lovely flower of youth,/Desiring his thighs and sweet mouth.” However, it would be wrong to believe that either man was necessarily, in our modern sense, gay. This is because from the eighth century onwards the Greek upper classes established and maintained a system of pederasty as a form of higher education. A fully grown adult male, usually in his twenties, would look out for a boy in his mid-teens and become his protector and guide. His task was to see him through from adolescence into adulthood and to act as a kind of moral tutor. Sex was not compulsory, but it was under certain strictly defined conditions allowed. The older man was the active lover/partner or erastes and the teenager was the loved one, or eromenos. Buggery was absolutely out of bounds and brought shame on any boy who allowed it to be done to him. It could have the most serious consequences, as the fate of Periander showed. This famous tyrant of Corinth in the seventh century unwisely teased his eromenos in the presence of other people with the question: “Aren’t you pregnant yet?” The boy was so upset by the insult that he killed Periander. A popular and acceptable technique for achieving orgasm was intercrural sex: both participants stood up and the erastes inserted his erect penis between the thighs of the eromenos and rubbed it to and fro. The youth was not meant to enjoy his lover’s attentions or show signs of arousal; rather, he was making a disinterested gift of himself to someone he admired. The great Athenian writer of tragic dramas, Aeschylus, wrote a play about the love between the two Greek heroes, Achilles and Patroclus. It was called The Myrmidons, after the warriors whom Achilles commanded during the Trojan War. Achilles is presented as the erastes, and reproaches his lover, in rather roundabout terms, for declining an intercrural proposition.
Anthony Everitt (The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World's Greatest Civilization)
[On Socrates] My decision to prove reincarnation to the sophomoric cavemen of Athens, quite possibly, was the best decision I made for both myself and humanity. Another dominant behavioral trait is displayed by my efforts to perform selfish acts selflessly, which is significantly unique because the majority of people perform selfless acts selfishly. In the former modus operandi the virtue is preserved through the honesty of being selfish, but in the latter the virtue is corrupted by the dishonesty since the intent is disguised to appear virtuous. Therefore, people are the most evil when performing selfish acts selfishly, and would therefore be the most benevolent when performing selfless acts selflessly. To performs acts selfishly for the mere sake of acting, is irresponsible and destructive and to perform acts selflessly for the sake of acting, is reckless and self-destructive. The interesting dynamic of this newest revelation is how Aristotle knew, innately, to seek out Plato upon his father's death. Once Socrates reunited with Plato, as Aristotle, they proved metaphysics; except the trial of Socrates was so traumatizing they made the decision not to make it known. Instead they channeled the knowledge constructively ("selfishly"- because self-preservation is ultimately selfish) which was done selflessly by cultivating it through education. They were so successful, that the King of Macedonia (my father's previous employer) made a formal request ordering me to tutor his son, Alexander. That's interesting because I have memory of Alexander the Great. He was a passionate boy with incredible sex drive that was equal to that of a honey badger's virulence. He allowed his power to intoxicate him and I was the only one he trusted, and when I made the attempt to slow him down by reminding of of the all powerful mighty God, something happened that caused his death and some Athenian imbecile (probably out of guilt) tried to hang me up on a cross for being a traitor. I got the hell of out doge like a bat of hell the minute that fool said something about me not "honoring" the "gods" - I may have even said something to the effect of 'I am God.' Although, the quote that did survive was when I refused to allow Athens to commit the same crime twice prior to fleeing the city to seek sanctuary at a family's estate.
Alejandro C. Estrada
It was not the lover she regretted,' wrote a Swiss imperial tutor, who understood their relationship. 'It was the friend.
Simon Sebag Montefiore (Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner)
And praise God, William recovered his health again, if not his hair. He began tutoring students in his shop in the evenings to make extra money. His shop soon had the air of a school, with books and maps and charts always lying about. His friend Scott joked that the shop was ‘Carey’s College’. At the Hackleton Meeting House he joined discussions. Once a month now they discussed the churchman’s obligation to evangelize, not just within his parish but to the entire world. Arguments flew back and forth. William found himself drawn more and more to the idea that the ‘Great Commission’ did indeed require churchmen to spread Christ to the entire world. No longer could rigid Calvinism dismiss all efforts at missionary work in other countries as useless because God had already chosen his ‘elect’.
Sam Wellman (William Carey)
Alexander the Great, conqueror of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East through to India, had had the great Aristotle as his tutor and mentor, and throughout his short life he remained devoted to philosophy and his master’s teachings. He once complained to Aristotle that during his long campaigns he had no one with whom he could discuss philosophical matters. Aristotle responded by suggesting that he take Callisthenes, a former pupil of Aristotle’s and a promising philosopher in his own right, along on the next campaign. Aristotle had schooled Callisthenes in the skills of being a courtier, but the young man secretly scoffed at them. He believed in pure philosophy, in unadorned words, in speaking the naked truth. If Alexander loved learning so much, Callisthenes thought, he could not object to one who spoke his mind. During one of Alexander’s major campaigns, Callisthenes spoke his mind one too many times and Alexander had him put to death.
Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
Then they had gone abroad, taking with them their three children. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, had been at Oxford, but had had his career there cut short by some more than ordinary youthful folly, which had induced his father to agree with the college authorities that his name had better be taken off the college books, — all which had been cause of very great sorrow to the Duke. The other boy was to go to Cambridge; but his father had thought it well to give him a twelvemonth’s run on the Continent, under his own inspection. Lady Mary, the only daughter, was the youngest of the family, and she also had been with them on the Continent. They remained the full year abroad, travelling with a large accompaniment of tutors, lady’s-maids, couriers, and sometimes friends.
Anthony Trollope (Complete Works of Anthony Trollope)
Harry was fascinated by the Hathaways, the mysterious connections between them, as if they shared some collective secret. One could almost see the wordless understanding that passed between them. Although Harry knew a great deal about people, he knew nothing about being part of a family. After Harry’s mother had run off with one of her lovers, his father had tried to get rid of every remaining trace of her existence. And he had done his best to forget that he even had a son, leaving Harry to the hotel staff and a succession of tutors. Harry had few memories of his mother, only that she had been beautiful and had had golden hair. It seemed she had always been going out, away from him, forever elusive. He remembered crying for her once, clutching his hands in her velvet skirts, and she had tried to make him let go, laughing softly at his persistence. In the wake of his parents’ abandonment, Harry had taken his meals in the kitchen with the hotel employees. When he was sick, one or another of the maids had taken care of him. He saw families come and go, and he had learned to view them with the same detachment that the hotel staff did. Deep down Harry harbored a suspicion that the reason his mother had left, the reason his father never had anything to do with him, was because he was unlovable. And therefore he had no desire to be part of a family. Even if or when Poppy bore him children, Harry would never allow anyone close enough to form an attachment. He would never let himself be shackled that way. And yet he sometimes knew a fleeting envy for those who were capable of it, like the Hathaways.
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
Okay, well, here are the best or most popular picks who still have one opening left: Heather Herr, Blair, Heidi, Noel, Heather Long, and Amy.” Ashton stood beside her locker, trying to appear as if she wasn’t listening. I could see her watching me from the corner of her eyes. That caught my attention. The ache that had taken up residence in my chest these days squeezed, reminding me why it was there. Would this feeling ever go away? How long would seeing her hurt so bad?” “Oh, and Ashton, of course.” Kayla’s chipper tone finally said the one word I couldn’t drown out. “What about Ashton?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from her to stare down at Kayla. “She’s still available. No one has picked her, except Sawyer, of course. I don’t think anyone will. No one wants her because they know they won’t be getting any special treatment from her. All the special treatment she’ll be dishing out will be for Sawyer.” “I want her.” “You do? Really?” “Yes.” “But you know Noel has a thing for you, and I can promise she’ll meet all your needs--” Kayla started saying. “I want Ashton,” I repeated and glared down at her again before turning and heading outside to the field house. Asking for Ashton might be opening myself up to more pain, but the thought of her doing things for Sawyer was enough to drive me crazy. The thought of her having to bake cookies, decorate a locker, and make cards for another guy infuriated me. Besides, I wasn’t doing so great in chemistry. I needed some tutoring. The one-on-one kind where boyfriends weren’t allowed.
Abbi Glines (The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1))
You play with great skill,” he said. “Thank you.” “Is that your favorite piece?” “It’s my most difficult,” Helen said, “but not my favorite.” “What do you play when there’s no one to hear?” The gentle question, spoken in that accent with vowels as broad as his shoulders, caused Helen’s stomach to tighten pleasurably. Perturbed by the sensation, she was slow to reply. “I don’t remember the name of it. A piano tutor taught it to me long ago. For years I’ve tried to find out what it is, but no one has ever recognized the melody.” “Play it for me.” Calling it up from memory, she played the sweetly haunting chords, her hands gentle on the keys. The mournful chords never failed to stir her, making her heart ache for things she couldn’t name. At the conclusion, Helen looked up from the keys and found Winterborne staring at her as if transfixed. He masked his expression, but not before she saw a mixture of puzzlement, fascination, and a hint of something hot and unsettling. “It’s Welsh,” he said. Helen shook her head with a laugh of wondering disbelief. “You know it?” “‘A Ei Di’r Deryn Du.’ Every Welshman is born knowing it.” “What is it about?” “A lover who asks a blackbird to carry a message to his sweetheart.” “Why can’t he go to her himself?” Helen realized they were both speaking in hushed tones, as if they were exchanging secrets. “He can’t find her. He’s too deep in love--it keeps him from seeing clearly.” “Does the blackbird find her?” “The song doesn’t say,” he said with a shrug. “But I must know the ending to the story,” Helen protested. Winterborne laughed. It was an irresistible sound, rough-soft and sly. When he replied, his accent had thickened. “That’s what comes o’ reading novels, it is. The story needs no ending. That’s not what matters.” “What matters, then?” she dared to ask. His dark gaze held hers. “That he loves. That he’s searching. Like the rest of us poor devils, he has no way of knowing if he’ll ever have his heart’s desire.
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
Why? To become great and to stay great, they must all know what came before, what is going on now, and what comes next. They must internalize the fundamentals of their domain and what surrounds them, without ossifying or becoming stuck in time. They must be always learning. We must all become our own teachers, tutors, and critics.
Ryan Holiday (Ego Is the Enemy)