Darwin8u > Recent Status Updates

Now just the damn capstone and the test.

"He did not attempt to make his robe assume the folds of Elijah's mantle; he cast no ray of the future upon the dark scroll of events; he sought not to condense into a flame the glimmer of things; he had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician. His humble soul loved; that was all." - Les Miserables, Page 51, Modern Library Edition.

"Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.” pg 25 ML version.

Reading with the kids. 3rd time around this beast.

Done with Pyrrhus and on to Caius Marius.

From Pelopidas: "An endeavour to avoid death is not blamable, if we do not basely desire to live; nor a willingness to die good and virtuous, if it proceeds from a contempt of life." pg385

On Alcibiades: "For he had, as it was observed, this peculiar talent and artifice for gaining men's affections, that he could at once comply with and really embrace and enter into their habits and ways of life, and change faster than the chameleon." - pg275

"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, partly through favour and flattery, pervert and distort truth." - pg214

Done with Theseus.
Best line from this section (aka, "Here be historical dragons, bitches":
"Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is not credit, or certainty any farther."