The tyrant is the real slave, possessed of desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and of more wants than any one

But he does know how to stay in the news.

Posted at 10:29 PM Friday night.

Promoted by the irredeemable Rod Dreher Saturday morning.

Trending #1 at CNBC Saturday night.

If Trump had any real power, US Treasury Bills wouldn't be yielding more as he posted this than they have in nine weeks.

 

 

The good we love for its own sake we obey

 It is not imaginable that men will be brought to obey what they cannot esteem.

 

-- Robert South

There is a kind of good we love both for its own sake and for its consequences.

-- Plato, Republic II, 357b,c

Shun excess, now and in the life to come

 

 

And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; for this is the greatest happiness for man.

-- Plato, Republic, 10.619a, b

Transmigration of souls, according to Dilbert

Hysterical.

Here:

Dilbert: I couldn't find any evidence that I have a soul, so I built an artificial one and put it in a drone. When my physical body dies, the drone will upload my memories and personality to the cloud to live forever. Woman: Your soul will be trapped in a server? Dilbert: No, I wrapped it in a virus so I can travel.

-- Tuesday, November 8, 2016 "The Virus Afterlife"

For many are called, but few are chosen

"[T]he worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant."

-- Socrates, Plato's Republic, Book 6

πάνσμικρον δή τι, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, λείπεται τῶν κατ᾽ ἀξίαν ὁμιλούντων φιλοσοφίᾳ

"Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

-- Matthew 7:14

 ὅτί στενὴ ἡ πύλη καὶ τεθλιμμένη ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ζωήν, καὶ ὀλίγοι εἰσὶν οἱ εὑρίσκοντες αὐτήν

Socrates on Obama

"[W]eak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6 

Socrates on Democracy

"[T]he corruption of the majority is also unavoidable."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6

Socrates on Election Campaigns

"The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6

Socrates on Pleasure

"A true philosopher . . . will hardly feel bodily pleasure."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6

A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country

[P]hilosophers have no honour in their cities . . . their having honour would be far more extraordinary. ... [T]he best votaries of philosophy [are] useless to the rest of the world.

-- Socrates, Plato's Republic, Book 6

The Philosophical Observer

"[H]e who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, [cannot] think much of human life."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6

Philosophical Minds Always Love Knowledge Which Shows Them The Eternal Nature

"[H]e whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections."

-- Socrates, Republic, Book 6