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Kein lebendes Wesen ist störrischer, keines will mit mehr Kunst behandelt seyn, als der Mensch; keines muß mehr geschont werden. Denn was ist thörichter, als daß man sich schämt, an Zugvieh und Hunden seinen Zorn auszulassen, der Mensch aber unter Menschen stehend am schlimmsten daran ist? (aus dem Text)...

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Philosophy

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This is an essay on decision biases and a critique on prejudices, neatly written and thought provoking. (Summary by sidhu177)

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Philosophy, Advice, Essay/Short nonfiction

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Excerpt: The ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings which bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early external testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply the only, and perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan is simple; the dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of Socrates and the transparent vanity and childlike enthusiasm of the rhapsode Ion. The theme of the Dialogue may possibly have been suggested by the passage of Xenophon?s Memorabilia in which the rhapsodists are described by Euthydemus as ?very precise about the exact words of Homer, but very idiotic themselves.?...

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Seneca the Younger wrote the moral essay De Brevitate Vitae — On the Shortness of Life — to his friend Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. (Introduction by xxxx)...

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Classics (antiquity), Philosophy

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The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, that is, the philosopher-scientists who lived before or contemporaneously to Socrates, were the first men in the Western world to establish a line of inquiry regarding the natural phenomena that rejected the traditional religious explanations and searched for rational explanations. Even though they do not form a school of thought, they can be considered the fathers of philosophy and many other sciences as we have them now. None of their works is extant, so, in this collection, we present the textual fragments, when existing, of ten Pre-Socratic philosopher-scientists, and quotations and testimonials about them left by later authors. (Summary by Leni)...

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Philosophy, Essay/Short nonfiction

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Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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The Summa Theologica (or the Summa Theologiae or simply the Summa, written 1265–1274) is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. It summarizes the reasonings for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, which, before the Protestant Reformation, subsisted solely in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa's topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God's creation, Man, Man's purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God.(Summary adapted from the Wikipedia) These are parts three and four of six parts of the Pars Prima, consisting of questions regarding the Angels, and the Work of the Six Days....

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Religion, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 14, 2012. The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, sometimes called 'Her Reply' was written in response to Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. (Summary by David Lawrence)...

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Poetry, Humor, Nature, Philosophy, Romance

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The Summa Theologica (or the Summa Theologiae or simply the Summa, written 1265–1274) is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. It summarizes the reasonings for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, which, before the Protestant Reformation, subsisted solely in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa's topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God's creation, Man, Man's purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God.(Summary adapted from the Wikipedia) This is part two of six parts of the Pars Prima, consisting of questions regarding the Trinity and Creation....

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Religion

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In Defense of Women is H. L. Mencken's 1918 book on women and the relationship between the sexes. Some laud the book as progressive while others brand it as reactionary. While Mencken didn't champion women's rights, he described women as wiser in many novel and observable ways, while demeaning average men. According to Mencken's biographer, Fred Hobson: Depending on the position of the reader, he was either a great defender of women's rights or, as a critic labelled him in 1916, 'the greatest misogynist since Schopenhauer','the country's high-priest of woman-haters.' (Summary from wikipedia)...

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Philosophy

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Encheiridion, stoische Regeln für ein zufriedenes Leben. Knapp und ausgezeichnet. Geschrieben von Epiktet (ca. 50-138). Übersetzung durch Carl Conz von 1864. (Summary by redaer) This reading is in German....

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Philosophy

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Von der Kürze des Lebens von Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC - AD64). Übersetzt durch J. Moser; veröffentlicht 1829. Es ist nicht wenig Zeit, was wir haben, sondern es ist viel, was wir nicht nützen. Über die Kostbarkeit der Zeit, die vielfältigen Arten, wie Menschen dieselbe verschwenden, und wie der Mensch die Frist seines Lebens richtig nutzt. Heute so relevant wie 49 AD. (Zusammenfassung von redaer)...

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Ancient Texts, Classics (antiquity), Essay/Short nonfiction, Philosophy

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Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a sophisticated novell with extremely hard to comprehend philosophical ideas lying on the border of paranoia, orthodoxal believing of God and psychological researches on human nature. Every sentence sounds like a sort of revelation to an unprepared reader’s mind and causes a deep flashback thoughts which are impossible to get rid of, which also require an immediate solution. Though it’s hard to define precisely what kind of content presented in novell but one can say it is a sort of impossible mixture of traditional Dostoevsky’s ideas of loneliness, ideas of internal human confilct, ideas of freedom and interhuman relationship. Reader keeps interest to the story in all time whilst he reads it. Such an effect is achieved by author’s methodical strikes right into reader’s head, so when you read a novell you have an extremely real experience of YOU being THERE, of you experiencing all that awe of facing loneliness and society exile. All that Dostoevsky literator’s power teleports you right into that underground, right into that dirty yellow (when you read Dostoevsky’s book you realize that...

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Literature

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“The following report appeared in the Argus newspaper of Saturday, the 28th July, 18-- “Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying. A crime has been committed by an unknown assassin, within a short distance of the principal streets of this great city, and is surrounded by an inpenetrable mystery. … “On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered….” (Excerpt from the first chapter.)...

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Mystery

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Underhill emphasizes the practical, here-and-now nature of spiritual life. She argues that spirituality is a genuine and abiding human fact, and that any complete description of human life must find room for the spiritual factor, and for the religious life in which it finds expression....

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Religion, Philosophy

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Introduction: The Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest, has also a very serious purpose. It may fairly claim to be the oldest treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation. Several of the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logic....

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volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Day-Dream by Sir Thomas Moore. This was the fortnightly poetry project for July 12th, 2009.

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Poetry, Literature, Philosophy, Romance

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volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Impartiality by James Russell Lowell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 16, 2011. James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Poetry, Literature, Philosophy

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Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs.” Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New Tables” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, could be of more real value than The Twilight of the Idols. Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. Nowhere is his language – that marvellous weapon which in his hand became at once so supple and so murderous – more forcible and more condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche’s works. On the contrary, I very much fear that unless the reader is well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of...

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Philosophy

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Voltairine de Cleyre (November 17, 1866 - June 20, 1912) was an American anarchist. She was skilled in many subjects and wrote essays, poems, letters, sketches, stories and speeches. These are her selected letters, sketches and stories. (Summary by enko)...

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Short stories, Philosophy