This Business of Quotations
“Buy old masters. They fetch a better price than old mistresses.” (Lord Beaverbrook) It’s hard for most literary types to get excited about business unless, of course, it is the business of publishing. But timeless observations do, on occasion, come from our captains of industry. The daily grind tends to hone their wit, adding punch [...]
Alexandria: Of Pharaohs and Philosophers
If you are reading this, odds are you were bedeviled by those horrible deductions in the back of your high school geometry books. That’s the geometry introduced to the world by Euclid of Alexandria in his seminal work, The Elements, way back during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). With its famed Museum and [...]
G.K. Chesterton: Tremendous Trifles
I remember a former boss criticizing and ultimately crushing a colleague with this scathing and unforgettable description: “He has only one idea and it is wrong.” Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a versatile and enormously gifted writer. He was also a prolific writer, having published some 80 books, a dozen posthumously. The fact that he [...]
What’s On Your Bookshelf?
My wife and I have begun the process of de-cluttering our home. Going through old clothes is one thing, old books another. I have decided to take an hour or so every now and then to look over our various bookshelves…including the ones buried in the basement. You know…the ones that contain old text books [...]
