More aphorisms and commentary from Balthasar Gracián, the 17th century Spanish Jesuit philosopher, offering counsel on surviving and thriving in the life of the court and society in general.

Our fourth installment of 9-passage sections of the ancient Chinese sage's Classic of the Way and Its Excellence.

Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist, educator, and famous as "Darwin's Bulldog," for championing the revolutionary naturalist's theory of evolution, offers his definition and explanation of a liberal education.

A handful of maxims whose practice can bring quietude and tranquillity to life.

William Cullen Bryant's most famous poem, which translates from the Greek as "A View of Death," written when he was 17 years old.

Greek philosopher Pythagoras, while sojourning in India, encounters an herb, an oyster, and a mob of Hindus bent on burning two men at the stakes for the perceived heresies of questioning religious traditional wisdom.

The story sung by Demodocus, singer of the court of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians, hosts of Odysseus after his raft washes ashore on the island of Scherie. How Aphrodite, goddess of love, cheated on her husband, Hephaestus, the gods' smithy, with Ares, god of war.

Six sonnets on the theme of time by the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. Music: John Dowland "Flow My Tears," performed by guitarist Jon Sayles. http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/earlymusic.htm

A short story from the French master of the form, Guy de Maupassant. A skilled carnival knife-thrower laments his misfortune to the sympathetic narrator of the tale.

An excerpt from the chapter, "Economy," in Walden by Henry David Thoreau, where the philosopher expounds his thoughts on simple accoutrements.