Magazine Posts

George Santayana - (1863 – 1952)  ~ Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, critic and novelist. Born in Spain and raised and educated in the US from the age of eight. He left his position at Harvard at the age of 48 and returned to Europe permanently. Santayana was the author of many books and known for his aphorisms. He was profoundly influenced by Spinoza's life and thought. Although he was an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised. 

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, publisher, and lecturer. Biography

Aldous Leonard Huxley ~ (1894 -1963) English writer, novelist, philosopher, poet and pacifist. He authored nearly 50 books, including Brave New World (1932) and his final novel, Island (1962)  When he was 16, he suffered an eye infection that left him nearly blind for almost two years. His sight was so compromised that he learned to read in Braille. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times. As a pacifist, he renounced all war and refused to fight in any war a decision which caused him not to be able to become a United States citizen after living in California for 14 years with his wife. More

Julius Caesar is believed to have said “Alea iacta est", on January 10, 49 BC, expressing his irreversible commitment, as he led his army across the Rubicon River in Northern Italy, defying the Roman Senate’s authority and initiating a civil war. More

Florynce Kennedy (1916 – 2000) Commonly known as "Flo"was an American lawyer, Civil Rights activist, radical feminist, lecturer, and activist. More

Hungarian Proverb. Sometimes attributed to Edgar Allen Poe.

Dougal Robertson (1924–1992) was a Scottish author and sailor born in Edinburgh who survived with his family being adrift at sea for 38 days after their 43-foot schooner, the Lucette, was sunk by a pod of killer whales in 1972 while on circumnavigation of the world trip. He recounted the ordeal in his books “Survive the Savage Sea” and "Sea Survival – A Manual" More

Eric Hoffer - (1902 –1983) was an American moral and social conservative philosopher. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen. Almost overnight, the San Francisco dockworker became a public figure. Recognized as a highly original thinker, he became known as the Longshoreman Philosopher. After The True Believer, he published ten more books. he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. More

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (1921 – 1991) was an American television producer and screenwriter. He was the creator of the science fiction franchise, Star Trek. Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer. During World War II, Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the Army Air Forces and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he began to write for television. More

Dorothy Ann Richards (1933 – 2006) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. A Democrat, she was elected to become Texas State Treasurer and then the second female governor of Texas (the first being Miriam A. Ferguson), and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners.
This quote is from her keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention

"The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other" (1940)

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) British philosopher, writer, mathematician, logician, historian, social critic, political activist, and Nobel Laureate. More

Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906 – 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, literary translator and poet. Beckett was a resident of Paris for most of his adult life and he wrote in both French and English. Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH during WWII and he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1961 he shared the inaugural Prix International with Jorge Luis Borges. In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.