April 18, 2014

between usefulness and beauty (1973)

Octavio Paz by Arturo Espinosa
In craftsmanship there is a continuous movement back and forth between usefulness and beauty; this back-and-forth motion has a name: pleasure. Things are pleasing because they are useful and beautiful.

Octavio Paz (1973)

April 1, 2014

only the earnest and free man (1860)

John Sokol, word portrait of Thoreau (1982)
We seem to have forgotten that the expression “a liberal education” originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further, and say that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man. In a slaveholding country like this, there can be no such thing as a liberal education tolerated by the State; and those scholars of Austria and France who, however learned they may be, are contented under their tyrannies have received only a servile education.

Henry David Thoreau (1860)