by Andrew Lynn
The second option is to accept the inevitability of change. It is to undergo a degree of disruption as certain of our beliefs and values are recognized to be no longer convincing or sustainable. But it is also to take part in the process of building a new and hopefully better world.
Classic works such as those found in this book will serve as an anchor during these times of change. They provide thoughtful reflection as a corrective and counterbalance to the more extreme belief systems that surround us. They are also a source of inspiration for renewal. As the ideologies of the twentieth century fail and pass, there will come a time to create new ways of thinking. We cannot as yet know what these new ways of thinking will be. What we can say is that they will be built in some way on the materials passed down to us from our forebears.
George Orwell once said that he who controls the past controls the future.
It is now time to take control of that past and make it our own again.
Bibliography
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Translated by F.H. Peters. 5th ed. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1909.
Aurelius, Marcus. The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Translated by George Long. London and New York: The Chesterfield Society, 1890.
Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. Translated by Leonard Eckstein Opdyke. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903.
Chuang-tzu. Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. Translated by Herbert Giles. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1889.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays: First Series. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1893.
Gracián, Baltasar. The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Translated by Joseph Jacobs. London and New York: Macmillan & Co, 1892.
Hazlitt, William. The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things. London: Bell & Daldy, 1870.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Machiavelli’s Prince. Translated by W.K. Marriott. London and Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons and E.P.Dutton & Co, 1908.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche Volume Twelve: Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Helen Zimmern. Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Press, 1909.
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. 3rd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1888.
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