An Organic Bibliography
Nietzsche -- his very name seems like it's a swear word when you say it to others without knowing how they think about this fella. He was a complex person, and so is his thought, which doesn't always align with other parts. He wasn't systematic, he was way better imo, a poetic kind of thinker, he's not saying what he's saying so that you can just blindly follow whatever he says, but to get you to be thinking on your own in a different potentially better way, a refreshing way even. But to mishandle such thoughts could be dangerous.
Cioran -- with Cioran, the poetic quality of thinking is taken further, the finest successor to the man above in this list, his books published in French and translated by Richard Howard are the focus for the most part, he did write some in his native land of Romania, but only 2 survive in good English translations, On the Heights of Despair and Tears and Saints. His 2nd essay in The New Gods is the best atheist writing I ever came across a long with a portion of Daybreak fron N. In this one he writes humorous but scathing accounts of the early church fathers and i've always felt so attached to that kind of bravura performance of making it all seem like that.
La Rochefoucauld -- the preeminent French Moralist after Montaigne, and along with Chamfort, La Bruyere, Vauvenargues, La Fontenelle -- this is the rich tradition Cioran is the best recent example of. Balthazar Gracian and Pascal can fit in here too, with Nietzsche's own one time friend Paul Ree, Lichtenberg's Waste Books, the Moral Essays of Leopardi and so on.
Spinoza -- this was one brave man, the Dutch Calvinists hated him with a passion owing mostly to his Tract that began the whole higher criticism that you can enjoy in many prestigious Bible commentaries that go to great lengths for example in the ones on Genesis how there was no one author of it. But I don't see the value of Spinoza a long those lines really for it would be a too limited reason to do so. This would be someone to grow into, as with Arthur Schopenhauer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- his Essays are such ennobling material to read. I feel like a better person for just mentioning it here!! He should be combined with Whitman and Thoreau.
Max Stirner -- anarchism is a better school of thought than many might think, that's all i'll say now but there is a recent book that can be the perfect intro to it all, much more approachable than the imposing and blunt Max.
Albert Camus -- his 2 famous essays about suicide and rebellion are my focus. The former shows how the absurd is dealt with, and the 2nd how historical people rebelled against the established norms.
Fyodor Dostoevsky -- a master of psychological realism
Emily Dickinson -- her poetry is the closest the printed word can be to pristine and beautiful nature.
In closing I need to mention Lao Tzu the legendary reputed author of Taoteching, and selected Buddhist scriptures such as The Pali Canon and Dhammapadda, there is so many of these however that I need much progress personally before I can even rattle off a definitive list of them, much is just too cosmic and fantastic for me to find anything edifying in them, but that trilogy of rest by Longchepa is noteworthy, and 3 names Jiddu Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa and Alan Watts for giving the Western world the essence of the Eastern tradition in a language that can be a little more understandable.
I love the Roman Stoics Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius too, but save them for last because the guy at the top of this list thought they were superfluous.
These are the main sources I will be reading for a secular sort of edification, for mental strengthening.
Cioran -- with Cioran, the poetic quality of thinking is taken further, the finest successor to the man above in this list, his books published in French and translated by Richard Howard are the focus for the most part, he did write some in his native land of Romania, but only 2 survive in good English translations, On the Heights of Despair and Tears and Saints. His 2nd essay in The New Gods is the best atheist writing I ever came across a long with a portion of Daybreak fron N. In this one he writes humorous but scathing accounts of the early church fathers and i've always felt so attached to that kind of bravura performance of making it all seem like that.
La Rochefoucauld -- the preeminent French Moralist after Montaigne, and along with Chamfort, La Bruyere, Vauvenargues, La Fontenelle -- this is the rich tradition Cioran is the best recent example of. Balthazar Gracian and Pascal can fit in here too, with Nietzsche's own one time friend Paul Ree, Lichtenberg's Waste Books, the Moral Essays of Leopardi and so on.
Spinoza -- this was one brave man, the Dutch Calvinists hated him with a passion owing mostly to his Tract that began the whole higher criticism that you can enjoy in many prestigious Bible commentaries that go to great lengths for example in the ones on Genesis how there was no one author of it. But I don't see the value of Spinoza a long those lines really for it would be a too limited reason to do so. This would be someone to grow into, as with Arthur Schopenhauer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- his Essays are such ennobling material to read. I feel like a better person for just mentioning it here!! He should be combined with Whitman and Thoreau.
Max Stirner -- anarchism is a better school of thought than many might think, that's all i'll say now but there is a recent book that can be the perfect intro to it all, much more approachable than the imposing and blunt Max.
Albert Camus -- his 2 famous essays about suicide and rebellion are my focus. The former shows how the absurd is dealt with, and the 2nd how historical people rebelled against the established norms.
Fyodor Dostoevsky -- a master of psychological realism
Emily Dickinson -- her poetry is the closest the printed word can be to pristine and beautiful nature.
In closing I need to mention Lao Tzu the legendary reputed author of Taoteching, and selected Buddhist scriptures such as The Pali Canon and Dhammapadda, there is so many of these however that I need much progress personally before I can even rattle off a definitive list of them, much is just too cosmic and fantastic for me to find anything edifying in them, but that trilogy of rest by Longchepa is noteworthy, and 3 names Jiddu Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa and Alan Watts for giving the Western world the essence of the Eastern tradition in a language that can be a little more understandable.
I love the Roman Stoics Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius too, but save them for last because the guy at the top of this list thought they were superfluous.
These are the main sources I will be reading for a secular sort of edification, for mental strengthening.
46-50, M