A collective of brilliant brevity
What works best is these which have short sections, put together they form the greatest devotional on my own terms:
0. Lao Tzu -- Tao te ching -- I award it the nothing number
1. Seneca's Letters on Ethics
2. Epictetus' Handbook and Discourses
3. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
4. Petrarch's Letters
5. Montaigne's Essays, although some are LONG, one extra long, Reymond Sebond is the name in the title of it.
6. La Rochefoucauld's Maxims
7. Chamfort's Maxims
8. La Bruyere's Characters
9. Vauvenargues' Thoughts and Maxims
10. Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead
11. Pascal's Pensees
12. Gracian's Pocket Oracle
13. Johnson's The Rambler, followed by other publications where it's all nice short and sweet essays, written with an inspired pen, as all these folks do.
14. Emerson's Essays
15. most of Nietzsche
16. all of Cioran
17. Lispector -- for here the reading is Life Itself
18. the short stories of Robert Walser
19. the poetry and Letters of Rilke -- what Petrarch was for the 14th century, Rilke is for the 20th, especially in the art of Letter writing.
20. Persian poetry, Rumi and Hafiz and others -- the best poets ever were from Persia.
21. Buddha's Dhammapadda is a singular little text which combines the most quotable parts of the Pali Canon.
22. Diapsalmata from Either/Or by Kierkegaard fits perfectly here
23. A Season in Hell and Illuminations from Arthur Rimbaud
24. Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
25. Lautreamont's Maldoror, but also Poesies by Isidore Ducasse the real name of Lautreamont.
26. Kahil Gibran must be included, he adds a distinct and emotional element to the proceedings here.
Letters, essays, aphorisms and life writing .... these are what my eyes delight in reading, for the great classic novels, my ears have all the joy in those, which will be the theme of some future post, because nothing I say will dull the shine they have, much as it should.
0. Lao Tzu -- Tao te ching -- I award it the nothing number
1. Seneca's Letters on Ethics
2. Epictetus' Handbook and Discourses
3. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
4. Petrarch's Letters
5. Montaigne's Essays, although some are LONG, one extra long, Reymond Sebond is the name in the title of it.
6. La Rochefoucauld's Maxims
7. Chamfort's Maxims
8. La Bruyere's Characters
9. Vauvenargues' Thoughts and Maxims
10. Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead
11. Pascal's Pensees
12. Gracian's Pocket Oracle
13. Johnson's The Rambler, followed by other publications where it's all nice short and sweet essays, written with an inspired pen, as all these folks do.
14. Emerson's Essays
15. most of Nietzsche
16. all of Cioran
17. Lispector -- for here the reading is Life Itself
18. the short stories of Robert Walser
19. the poetry and Letters of Rilke -- what Petrarch was for the 14th century, Rilke is for the 20th, especially in the art of Letter writing.
20. Persian poetry, Rumi and Hafiz and others -- the best poets ever were from Persia.
21. Buddha's Dhammapadda is a singular little text which combines the most quotable parts of the Pali Canon.
22. Diapsalmata from Either/Or by Kierkegaard fits perfectly here
23. A Season in Hell and Illuminations from Arthur Rimbaud
24. Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
25. Lautreamont's Maldoror, but also Poesies by Isidore Ducasse the real name of Lautreamont.
26. Kahil Gibran must be included, he adds a distinct and emotional element to the proceedings here.
Letters, essays, aphorisms and life writing .... these are what my eyes delight in reading, for the great classic novels, my ears have all the joy in those, which will be the theme of some future post, because nothing I say will dull the shine they have, much as it should.
46-50, M