Thoughts on Thinking

"When somebody persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?" John Maynard Keynes

"If you're unhappy with your life, change your thinking." Charles Fillmore

"The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it." Eckhart Tolle

"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them." Epictetus

"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates

"Consciousness is a terrible thing to waste." PunditGeorge

Monday, August 06, 2012

Hot Summer Reading

I mean, the summer is hot and yours truly is reading some chick-lit.


Time to catch up on two women only causally familiar - Catherine and Cleopatra.  Catherine, who ruled Russia when the British colonies in America were in revolt, has always been an historical shadow for me.  Robert K. Massie has produced a detailed and readable biography of she who was called the Great.

Who knew that Catherine declined pleas from British George III to send Russian troops to the American colonies to squash their rebellion?  Imagine USA history with Russians instead of Hessians roaming...


With Cleopatra, separating myth from evidence is difficult since most of her story went down in defeat.  Yet Stacy Schiff presents an exciting biography that, in my opinion, captures the phenomena that was Cleopatra.  No floozy and quite likely one of the most educated of people on the planet at the time, she emerges as a dedicated, focused, ruler. 

Who knew that rascal Herod would figure prominently in her history?



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