Man by nature is idealistic, seeks excellence, and hopes for perfection, but he is bound by the weakness of human nature and the limits of the human condition. There is no such being as a faultless painter or a sinless human being. In the sport of baseball every player aspires to get a hit every time and bat 1.000, but even the best of batters only have an average of .300.

According to proverbial wisdom, “When you do succeed, the chances are that you were not trying too hard in the first place.” This observation appears to contradict the idea of ...

In Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s classic Gift from the Sea the author, using the leisure and recollection of a summer vacation at the ocean, reflects on the art of living a ...

The ancient Greeks identified the sign of fruitfulness as proof of the art of living well, as the true mark of civilization. On the shield of Achilles in the Iliad ...

To be human is to think of the future, to imagine the unknown, and to fear the unpredictable. So many things are not in the control of human beings who ...

In his fairy tale “The Goblin at the Provision Dealer’s” or in some editions entitled “The Pixy at the Grocer’s,” Hans Andersen depicts the life of a goblin who enjoys ...

A critic of Jane Austen’s novels facetiously coined this phrase to illustrate one of the virtues of civility. Characters with the most refined and elegant manners exemplify this virtue that ...

What is Nature without the pied beauty of the four seasons? What is a home without paint, pictures, flowers, and interior decoration? What are human beings without tasteful, dignified clothing? ...

“Set a watch, Lord, beside my mouth and a door about my lips.” Psalm 38:1 The art of living is the knowledge of knowing when to speak and when to ...

The Devil thrives on conflict and dissension. Division or “legion” is his name. Whether it is wars between nations, heresy or schism in the Church, or divorce in families, the ...

In the Odyssey, Homer’s epic about the family as the center of civilization portrays two ways of life—the civilized and the barbaric. The civilized dwell in homes, the barbaric in ...

In Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” the narrator spends an entire day from morning till evening picking all the apples before the first frost of the season. He has spent the ...

A person can live in a narrow world or a wider universe. He can live in a state of stagnation with no goals or ambitions, or keep his life in ...

This piece is transcribed from a commencement speech delivered by the author. In Lucretius’s famous words, “Nothing can come from nothing.” A hundred or a thousand or a million times ...

This 100th anniversary edition of Chesterton’s poetic version of King Alfred’s heroic defense of Christian England from the pagan Danes is an exquisite publication.It embellishes the famous narrative and provides ...

Simone Weil, a noted Jewish philosopher, remarked, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, ...

In A Wonder Book and The Tanglewood Tales Hawthorne retells some of the famous classical myths in an imaginative and charming style that captures the universality and moral wisdom of ...

One of the greatest of Catholic poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., is best known for his appreciation of the beauty, variety, and individuality (“this-ness”) of God’s creation. As a poet ...

These articles will cite famous advice, wise proverbs, and prudent counsel as they appear in the classics of literature, in the words of famous characters from the good and great ...

The Cottage at Bantry Bay, Francie on the Run, and Pegeen are charming, wholesome, fun-filled tales of Catholic family life in 1940s Ireland that are humorous and heartwarming. In these ...