He was a Phoenician and originally a slave who practised usury, apparently with great success, and became a citizen of Thebes, presumably a rich one. So the story goes, he was robbed of all his money and hanged himself in despair. Menippus was a follower...
It’s also true that the more we learn, the more we realize we don’t know. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything! The human world is an increasingly complex place, more and more difficult to understand. Yet people strive unceasingly to make sense of things....
A woodcutter was very old, without any family - his wife had died and he had no children. Just to feed himself in his old age - and he must have been eighty - he had to work hard to go to the forest to...
Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don’t stop it. Is it not yet come? Don’t stretch your desire towards...
Lea, 58, is an African American woman who grew up in the segregated South. As a child, she had known great love from her own community as well as the pain of hatred from outside her community. She told me: “You carry this hatred with...
PSYCHOTHERAPY AS A GOOD HUMAN RELATIONSHIP Any ultimate analysis of human, interpersonal relationships, e.g., friendship, marriage, etc., will show (1) that basic needs can be satisfied only interpersonally, and (2) that the satisfactions of these needs are precisely those we have already spoken of as the basic therapeutic medicines, namely,...
In the practice of life the degree of freedom to choose is different at any given moment. If the degree of freedom to choose the good is great, it needs less effort to choose the good. If it is small, it takes a great effort,...
The Dinner of the Seven Wise Men Our visitor here has precipitated us into a conversation that is quite inappropriate, since he has not been careful to bring up topics and questions suitable for persons on their way to dinner. Do you not honestly believe that, as...
Without leaving the room we hope to explore the whole length and width of the river and perceive the richness of the green pastures along its banks. We live in a little room, we paint on a little canvas, thinking that we have grasped life...
Humans use fear to domesticate humans, and our fear increases with each experience of injustice. The sense of injustice is the knife that opens a wound in our emotional body. Emotional poison is created by our reaction to what we consider injustice. Some wounds will heal, others...
