Finished Reading “Heretics”

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  "G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on  "heretics" - those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views - Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds... those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them." (Goodreads)

Seneca, Moral Letter 36, “On the Value of Retirement”

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 “Prosperity is a turbulent thing; it torments itself. It stirs the brain in more ways than one, goading men on to various aims, – some to power, and others to high living. Some it puffs up; others it slackens and wholly enervates. . . . 

. . . everything which seems to perish merely changes. Since you are destined to return, you ought to depart with a tranquil mind. Mark how the round of the universe repeats its course; you will see that no star in our firmament is extinguished, but that they all set and rise in alternation. Summer has gone, but another year will bring it again; winter lies low, but will be restored by its own proper months; night has overwhelmed the sun, but day will soon rout the night again. The wandering stars retrace their former courses; a part of the sky is rising unceasingly, and a part is sinking.” (Seneca, Moral Letter 36, “On the Value of Retirement”)

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