George Washington

Both as a matter of temperament and policy, Washington was taciturn, once advising his adopted grandson, “It is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”

-- Ron Chernow, “Alexander Hamilton”

The Savage God

“Suicides were the aristocrats of death - God’s graduate students, acting out their theses to prove how limited were the alternatives He allowed Himself and His creatures. Their act was, at its best, superb literary criticism.”

-- Daniel Stern

1813- 1855 Kierkegaard

The Times gives us a nice piece on Kierkegaard, one of those great names that we would all like to read but usually never get around to. One of the problems, of course, is that we have little interest today in the doubts and squabbles of old, devout Christian thought, even if Kierkegaard at least represents a confrontation and tangling with those holy propositions by a more modern, rational mind. It is just that he never overcomes those ancient, revered beliefs. The intelligence of his era had yet to develop the escape velocity necessary to be able to dismiss them, but we are at the borderline with him, even as we must leave him on the medievalish side.

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