Faith · Books · Observations
Who is the best teacher? – Suffering. Who is the worst teacher? – Pleasure. What is the rarest skill? – The ability to give. What is the greatest skill? – The ability to forgive. What is the most difficult skill? – The ability to keep silent. What is the most important skill? – The ability to
Books · Observations
Beware of things! They enslave us very quickly and very firmly! So Ebenezer Sidney, the hero of Alexander Grin's novella “The Grey Motor-Car”, warns his interlocutor as he reflects on the degree to which mechanical objects (or creatures) may be endowed with life. I recalled the story
Books · Observations · Society · Humour
A quotation from a Doctor of Sciences on an analytical programme on Channel One about the meeting in Alaska. There will be no other analysis today
NB! · Observations
NB! · Observations · Humour
Books · Observations · Society · People
The attitude to the creative work and writings of people with such a dark biography is, in truth, a thorny ethical question. When it came to Roman Polanski, his films, at least for me, were not something one wished to unsee, but Sokolov's book I would not pick
Books · Observations · Paris · Humour
Cacti! The Louvre's bookshop has found an original and long-awaited solution to the problem of visitors squeezing between tables laden with stacks of books and knocking them over, catching them with a sleeve, a bag or a hip. Cacti placed between the tables will unfailingly halt the
NB! · Books · Observations · Humour
Architecture · Art · Books · Observations
It was no accident that I recalled La Fontaine's fable of the statue of Jupiter last night. In an illustrated edition of La Fontaine, the figure of Jupiter was depicted as a sculpture resembling the one installed in the hall of the former residence of the Margraves of
Faith · Books · Observations · Education
Pray, read, read, read, read again, labour, and you shall discover something new
Archive · Art · Observations · Society
In the 1790s, campaigns against influences from France appear in England, frightened by the backdrop of bloody reprisals and the overthrow of the monarchy. A propaganda broadsheet compares two allegories of Liberty: Britannia with the scales of justice, Magna Carta under the protection of the imperial lion, and a staff
Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Education
📌 Also in this building: in 1767 a prison was opened for "raving convicts". From 1829 most of its prisoners were clergy and sectarians. Among the inmates were the soothsayer monk Avel, who foretold the fate of the Romanov dynasty; the Old Believer hierarchs Arkady, Alimpy, Konon and Gennady;