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Word Gems 

self-knowledge, authentic living, full humanity, continual awakening 

"A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so.  It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones." Abraham Lincoln 

"All that a university can do for us is ... teach us to read... after all manners of professors have done their best for us. The true university is a collection of books." Thomas Carlyle

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads." Emerson

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miseries of life." W. Somerset Maugham

• the Great Books, the Great Ideas, the Great Conversation

Aristotle

Categories – Classifies fundamental types of being and predication, revealing how language and thought structure our understanding of reality.

Constitution of the Athenians – A historical study of Athens’ political evolution, illustrating how constitutions rise, transform, and decline.

De Anima (On the Soul) – Explores life, perception, and intellect, proposing the soul as the organizing principle of living beings.

Eudemian Ethics – A parallel ethical inquiry examining virtue, happiness, and contemplation as foundations of the fulfilled human life.

Generation and Corruption – Investigates how substances arise, transform, and perish, explaining the processes underlying change in the natural world.

Metaphysics – Probes the deepest questions of existence, causation, substance, and the ultimate principles governing reality.

Nicomachean Ethics – Explores the nature of virtue and the path toward human flourishing through rational activity and moral character.

On Interpretation – Examines propositions, truth, contradiction, and modality, linking language with the logical structure of thought.

Physics – Studies nature, motion, time, and causality, establishing the framework for understanding change and the principles governing the physical world.

Poetics – Analyzes literary art, especially tragedy, explaining how imitation, plot, and catharsis shape powerful storytelling.

Politics – Investigates the nature of the state, justice, and citizenship, seeking the best political structures for human flourishing.

Posterior Analytics – Explains scientific knowledge, demonstration, and first principles, showing how true understanding differs from mere belief.

Prior Analytics – Introduces the syllogism and the structure of formal reasoning, founding the systematic study of logic.

Rhetoric – Studies persuasion through character, emotion, and argument, revealing how speech shapes civic life and public judgment.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - a prophet challenges humanity to go beyond comfort and old morals and strive for transcendence

Plato

Apology - Socrates on trial, his defense of truth and the examined life, even at death’s door.

Charmides - What is self-control? Socrates probes whether true temperance lies in self-knowledge rather than mere restraint.

Crito - Socrates’ friend pleads for his escape the death, and a debate on civil law as morally obligatory.

Euthydemus - A comic duel of logic: Socrates exposes sophists who win arguments through verbal tricks rather than truth.

Euthyphro - A debate on whether religious rightness is defined by deity or by reason.

Gorgias - What is human greatness? and the question of what it means to truly live well.

Ion - Do poets possess knowledge, or divine madness? Socrates suggests artistic brilliance flows from inspiration rather than understanding.

Laches - What is courage? Soldiers and philosophers struggle to define the virtue that stands firm in danger and uncertainty.

Laws - Plato’s final vision of society: detailed laws and institutions designed to guide imperfect humans toward virtue and order.

Meno - An exploration of whether virtue can be taught, and the mysterious nature of knowledge itself.

Parmenides - A devastating critique of Plato’s own Theory of Forms, pushing metaphysics to its most difficult and abstract limits.

Phaedo - Socrates’ final conversation: the immortality of the soul and the philosopher’s readiness for death.

Phaedrus - A dialogue on love, the soul, and the art of rhetoric as a path to truth.

Philebus - Is the good life pleasure or wisdom? Plato argues that the highest life harmonizes intelligence with measured pleasure.

Protagoras - A debate on whether virtue is innate, teachable, or a matter of practice.

The Republic - An inquiry into justice, society, and the possibility of whether an ideal society might be constructed.

Sophist - What separates the philosopher from the sophist? Plato investigates truth, deception, and the strange reality of non-being.

Statesman - Who truly deserves to rule? Plato searches for the genuine statesman amid the confusion of power, expertise, and political illusion.

Symposium - Love as transformative force toward wisdom and ultimate Beauty.

Theaetetus - What is knowledge? Plato examines perception, belief, and reason in one of philosophy’s deepest epistemological investigations.

Timaeus - A cosmological vision of the universe, blending reason, nature, and divine craftsmanship.

The in-flight vaults of Notre-Dame Cathedral