“If I could go back to a point in history to try to get things to come out differently, I would go back and tell moses to go up the mountain again and get the other tablet. Because the Ten Commandments just tell us what we are supped to do with one another, not a word about our relationship to the earth. Genesis starts with these commands: multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it. We have multiplied very well, we have replenished our populations very well, we have subdued it all too well, and we don’t have any other instruction.”
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“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
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“You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, "What are your thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that.”
― Meditations
― Meditations
“Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. (To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.)”
― The Way Things Are
― The Way Things Are
“Nothing is so essential as dignity…Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.”
― The Signature of All Things
― The Signature of All Things
Benedict’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Benedict’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Benedict
Lists liked by Benedict

















