Articles & Essays

A boy who has slept through a freezing night in a tent, and woken to frost on the fly and a fire to rebuild, knows something about himself that he did not know before. Our winters are cold enough to be a real challenge and mild enough to be manageable, the trails are empty, the bugs are gone, and a campfire on a frosty night is about as good as camping gets.

It requires patience, preparation, attention to small things, and respect for something that can hurt you. Those are not camping skills. They are the habits of a competent man.

In the fall of 1918, a sharpshooter from the hills of Fentress County, Tennessee, did something so improbable it still reads like fiction. This is the part of the story a teenage boy most needs to hear.

A textbook can tell a boy that thousands of men died at Franklin. Standing at the edge of the open ground they crossed tells him something no textbook can. In the late afternoon of November 30, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood ordered his army across roughly two miles of open ground against entrenched Union troops.

You do not need a long weekend or a four hour drive to put your son on a trail that climbs, winds through hollows, and leaves him tired in the right way. A hike is one of the few activities where a father and son walk side by side for hours with nothing to look at but the path and each other.

A good outdoor program for a teenage boy gives him real responsibility in a setting where mistakes have real but survivable consequences. Confidence is what a boy is left with after he has done hard things competently.

He gave great pains to the study of eloquence, as wings upon which he might aspire to public business; and it was very apparent that he did not intend to pass his days in obscurity. And Cicero, the orator, relates, that when he declined all such concerns, and would have lived privately, his brother appeared to him in a dream, and calling him by his name, said, "why do you tarry, Caius?

They were the sons of Tiberius Gracchus, who, though he had been once censor, twice consul, and twice had triumphed, yet was more renowned and esteemed for his virtue than his honors. The power they would have exercised, had they flourished both together, could scarcely have failed to overcome all resistance.

Nashville's happens to be one of the best adventure stories in American history, and most boys who grow up here have never heard it. The settlers did not know whether the fort would hold, whether the crops would grow, or whether their families would survive the next winter.

The father's job is to set the trip up so that the boy is tested and not broken, does the work himself, and ends the last day asking about the next one. A boy who carries the stove is a member of the expedition, and he will guard it accordingly.

The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in their natural characters, as their passion for distinction and their love of liberty in civil life, and their want of courage in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two other orators, who,…

A classroom can teach a boy what preparedness means. A night in the woods with a fire that keeps going out teaches him what it is. On a trail, a mistake costs a wet sleeping bag, a missed campsite, or a hungry night.

But the revival has a way of flattening the thing it revives. A young man who wants what the Stoics actually offered should know what that was, and should know its limits.

By Plutarch / Translated by John Dryden IT is generally said, that Helvia, the mother of Cicero, was both well born and lived a fair life; but of his father nothing is reported but in extremes. For whilst some would have him the son of a fuller, and educated in that trade, others carry back the orig…

But the time that stays with a boy tends to have a different shape. The finished object matters more than it seems.

None of these ideas is universal. A boy who lacks it is at the mercy of whoever tells him what to think about the past.

Boys are among the most natural historians alive; they simply find most school history unrecognizable as the thing they love. A boy who has read about the Battle of Franklin and then walks the ground sees the field differently from a boy who is told about it by a plaque.

Now Cleomenes had a generous and great soul; he was as temperate and moderate in his pleasures as Agis, but not so scrupulous, circumspect, and gentle. If you have any designs upon the Lacedæmonians, begin before this young eagle's talons are grown.

What does not take care of itself is the rest of fatherhood: the things a father has to decide to give, keep giving when it is inconvenient, and give whether or not the boy seems to want them at the time. The years in which a boy wants his father's company are few, and they close early.

Such an unsociable, solitary thing is power, and so much of jealousy and distrust in it, that the first and greatest of the successors of Alexander could make it a thing to glory in that he was not so afraid of his son as to forbid his standing beside him with a weapon in his hand. Two persons who have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great natures produce great vices as well as virtu…

The answer is one of the best stories in the city's history, and it makes a visit to the Parthenon a lesson in architecture, ambition, and what a city once believed about itself. It is that a young Southern city, some thirty years after a devastating war, decided that the best way to celebrate itself was to rebuild the greatest monument of classical civilization at full size.

The man who led the Corps of Discovery across a continent is buried in a quiet stand of woods in Lewis County, Tennessee, about a morning's drive from Nashville. By sunrise on October 11 he was dead of gunshot wounds, at the age of 35.

For this is indeed the true condition of men in public life, who, to gain the vain title of being the people's leaders and governors, are content to make themselves the slaves and followers of all the people's humors and caprices. When the love of gold and silver had once gained admittance into the Lacedæmonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by avarice and baseness of spirit in the pursuit…

The idea sounds almost too simple to be a philosophy of education: instead of reading textbooks about the great thinkers, read the great thinkers. The tradition stops being a museum and becomes a live debate that the student is now part of.

Antony grew up a very beautiful youth, but, by the worst of misfortunes, he fell into the acquaintance and friendship of Curio, a man abandoned to his pleasures; who, to make Antony's dependence upon him a matter of greater necessity, plunged him into a life of drinking and dissipation, and led him through a course of such extravagance, that he ran, at that early age, into debt to the amount of tw…

But a surprising number teach something closer to the appearance of leadership than the thing itself. A seventeen-year-old who can speak well but panics when a plan falls apart is not ready to lead anything difficult.

Few books have shaped the men who shaped the West as much as Plutarch's Lives. He is trying to show you what kind of men made it happen, so that you can judge them and, in judging them, learn to judge yourself.

Why does nobody kill this man? What a blessing for Italy, that he is but a child!

There is a building in downtown Nashville where the architect is sealed inside the walls, a president and his wife are buried on the lawn, and the tower is copied from a monument that has stood in Athens for more than two thousand years. A boy who learns to read buildings will never walk through a city the same way again.

It was among the most widely taught study habits in the Western world for centuries, and today almost no one has heard of it. In other words, this is not a hobby.

By Plutarch / Translated by John Dryden IF it be true, Sosius Senecio, that, as Simonides tells us, "Of the Corinthians Troy does not complain" for having taken part with the Achaeans in the siege, because the Trojans also had Corinthians (Glaucus, who sprang from Corinth,) fighting bravely on their…

Boys do not become readers because a parent tells them to. A boy who picks his own books reads them.

Backpacking near Nashville can be every bit as good: between the city and the Cumberland Plateau lie some of the best overnight trips in the Southeast, with gorges, waterfalls, and stone bluffs that most Tennesseans have never seen. A boy who has carried everything he needs on his back for three days learns something about sufficiency that a lifetime of comfort cannot teach.

But this Brutus, whose life we now write, having to the goodness of his disposition added the improvements of learning and the study of philosophy, and having stirred up his natural parts, of themselves grave and gentle, by applying himself to business and public affairs, seems to have been of a temper exactly framed for virtue; insomuch that they who were most his enemies upon account of his cons…

Ask five parents at a Nashville school fair what classical education is and you will get five answers. Classical education is an approach to schooling that aims to form a person, not just to prepare a worker, and it does so by training the student in the arts of language and reasoning and by putting the best books and ideas of the Western tradition in front of him.

For most of the history of Western education, rhetoric was not an elective. A teenager who learns to think this way learns to read people and situations, not just to talk.

Aratus, being thus delivered and secured from this danger, conceived from the first and ever after nourished a vehement and burning hatred against tyrants, which strengthened with his years. Aratus, hearing this, dispatches away Xenocles with two of his own servants, Seuthas and Technon, to view the wall, resolving, if possible, secretly and with one risk to hazard all on a single trial, rather th…

For most of history, an educated boy carried poetry in his head. That habit has nearly vanished, and with it went something valuable: a store of noble words that a young man can reach for when he is afraid, grieving, or tempted to quit.

Ask a visitor what Nashville offers after dark and he will talk about Broadway. Lectures inform. Conversation forms.

Cyrus, from his earliest youth, showed something of a headstrong and vehement character; Artaxerxes, on the other side, was gentler in everything, and of a nature more yielding and soft in its action. This, however, could no longer content him; nor did he so well remember his delivery as his arrest, his resentment for which made him more eagerly desirous of the kingdom than before.

A great deal of destructive behavior by young men, from reckless driving to gang initiation to bar fights, looks like an attempt to answer a question nobody has settled for them. Most American boys get a driver's license.

A boy in Middle Tennessee today can reach eighteen without ever having been truly cold, truly tired, truly afraid, or truly responsible for anything. A boy who has never struggled has no evidence about himself.

nothing is more terrible than a military force moving about in an empire upon uninstructed and unreasoning impulses. Sulpicius Galba is owned by all to have been the richest private person that ever came to the imperial seat.

Give a fourteen-year-old a novel about feelings in a suburban high school and he will put it down. Give him a book in which men cross an ocean in an open boat, and he will read it under the covers with a flashlight.

Most boys would rather take a punch than give a speech. A boy who reaches eighteen unable to speak to a group has a real disadvantage, in college, in work, and in every situation where a man needs to say what he thinks and have it heard.

So that the nobility and chief of the people, who were at first apprehensive that no human creature, but some supernatural penal, or vindictive power had seized the empire, began now to flatter themselves with hopes of a government that smiled upon them thus early. Therefore he gave orders to the prefects to address the soldiers and do their best to pacify them, while he bade the guests rise, and…

By the third or fourth meeting, two men have not finished the reading, one has a conflict, and the conversation drifts toward work and sports. Men will show up for a hard book that gives them something to argue about.

Ask a man who boxed as a boy what it gave him and he will rarely mention fitness first. The boys who start fights at school are very often the ones who have never been in a real one.

Most first camping trips between a father and son are decided somewhere around the second morning. A boy who gives one-word answers across the dinner table will often talk freely when he is looking at a fire instead of at his father.

But Phocion's was a real virtue, only overmatched in the unequal contest with an adverse time, and rendered by the ill fortunes of Greece inglorious and obscure. At such times the conduct of public affairs is on all hands most hazardous.

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Once, moreover, a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept, which more tha…

For on the one hand, never did the Romans give such demonstrations of a vehement and fierce hatred against any of their generals, as they did against Strabo, the father of Pompey; during whose lifetime, it is true, they stood in awe of his military power, as indeed he was a formidable warrior, but immediately upon his death, which happened by a stroke of thunder, they treated him with the utmost c…

he answered, that they knew little who did not see more than one Marius in that boy. For thirty-eight days, with all the freedom in the world, he amused himself with joining in their exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards.

He had one leg shorter than the other, but this deformity was little observed in the general beauty of his person in youth. the goodness of his humor, and his constant cheerfulness and playfulness of temper, always free from anything of moroseness or haughtiness, made him more attractive, even to his old age, than the most beautiful and youthful men of the nation.

If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same; If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

After the death of Alexander, when Neoptolemus, who had been captain of his lifeguard, said that he had followed Alexander with shield and spear, but Eumenes only with pen and paper, the Macedonians laughed at him, as knowing very well that, besides other marks of favor, the king had done him the honor to make him a kind of kinsman to himself by marriage. But Eumenes, whether fearing Antipater, or…

Yet though he had continually in her a far more difficult adversary to contend against than his open enemies, he nevertheless maintained his ground, with the military skill of Metellus, the boldness of Pompey, the success of Sylla, and the power of the Roman people, all to be encountered by one who was a banished man and a stranger at the head of a body of barbarians. Nor did he relinquish the par…

People were wont to say that the many virtues of Crassus were darkened by the one vice of avarice, and indeed he seemed to have no other but that; for it being the most predominant, obscured others to which he was inclined. Nor did he leave the lady till he had got the estate.

But here it will be well for me to entreat the reader, in all courtesy, not to think that I contend with Thucydides in matters so pathetically, vividly, and eloquently, beyond all imitation, and even beyond himself, expressed by him; nor to believe me guilty of the like folly with Timaeus, who, hoping in his history to surpass Thucydides in art, and to make Philistus appear a trifler and a novice,…

For nothing is more intractable than man when in felicity, nor anything more docile, when he has been reduced and humbled by fortune. It was for a man of no business and much curiosity to see such things, not for him who had left his commander in the field, lodging under the ramparts of his enemies.

There is something very special about gentlemen gathering among themselves for an intentional conversation, and that was the case thousands of years ago for ancient men just as much as it is for us today. The hostility of our culture toward men has placed many in a horrible predicament: forcing them either to tame themselves to avoid harassment or to endure the slurry of names meant to reduce thei…

And finding all his approaches, his gifts, and his entreaties alike repulsed, he showed violent inclinations to assault Damon. No Greek before Cimon, nor Roman before Lucullus, ever carried the scene of war so far from their own country; putting out of the question the acts of Bacchus and Hercules, and any exploit of Perseus against the Ethiopians, Medes, and Armenians, or again of Jason, of which…

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

And how can you be an honest man, who, since the death of a father who left you nothing, have become so rich? Sylla is a mulberry sprinkled o'er with meal.

O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection…

He is said never to have either studied Greek, or to have made use of that language in any matter of consequence; thinking it ridiculous to bestow time in that learning, the teachers of which were little better than slaves. So if any could have persuaded Marius to pay his devotions to the Greek Muses and Graces, he had never brought his incomparable actions, both in war and peace, to so unworthy a…

It is the true glory of a man to share in the toils of his own people. when passionate men are unified behind a mission that is when true social and cultural change occurs.

Pyrrhus, yet an infant, and searched for by the enemy, had been stolen away and carried off by Androclides end Angelus; who, however, being obliged to take with them a few servants, and women to nurse the child, were much impeded and retarded in their flight, and when they were now overtaken, they delivered the infant to Androcleon, Hippias, and Neander, faithful and able young fellows, giving the…

This instinct is not one of survival. Beauty requires effort.

But being ever thirsty after honour, and passionate for glory, if anything of a greater and more extraordinary nature were to be done, he was eager to be the doer of it himself; and took more pleasure in those that needed, than in those that were capable of conferring favours; looking on the former as objects for his virtue, and on the latter as competitors in glory. Now Greece (which had not hith…

Since the dawn of time great civilizations have all had one thing in common; men's societies. This tradition continued through American culture up until the 60s & 70s when many fraternal groups were infiltrated and disemboweled.

And one of the Romans, to praise him, calls him the last of the Greeks; as if after him Greece had produced no great man, nor who deserved the name of Greek. The love of honour and distinction was, in his character, not unalloyed with feelings of personal rivalry and resentment.

If I were to have a friend visit from some distant country, or even another state, and ask for me to give them a real "Tennessee experience" I would take them out in a canoe overnight on the river. It is these quiet and idyllic scenes in nature that give one's mind a rest from the ever-present nerve of modernity.

Now it being the custom among the Romans to call those who, having no repute by birth, made themselves eminent by their own exertions, new men or upstarts, they called even Cato himself so, and so he confessed himself to be as to any public distinction or employment, but yet asserted that in the exploits and virtues of his ancestors he was very ancient. He would never refuse to be counsel for thos…

Far off in the mountains of Virginia there is a group of Christian Gentlemen building a boys boarding school. The devil was said to have lingered around St. Dunstan's cell many times and in many forms.

Put a boy in the woods and watch how long it takes for him to start painting his face and shooting arrows across the sky. If we can wake him up, and tame him, we can do whatever we want in life.

But Demetrius, the Phalerian, in opposition to this general report, professes in his Socrates to know a farm at Phalerum going by Aristides's name, where he was interred; and, as marks of his opulence, adduces first, the office of archon eponymus, which he obtained by the lot of the bean; which was confined to the highest assessed families, called the Pentacosiomedimni; second, the ostracism, whic…

Marcellus, ignorant or unskillful of no kind of fighting, in single combat surpassed himself; he never declined a challenge, and never accepted without killing his challenger. So much were all things at Rome made to depend upon religion; they would not allow any contempt of the omens and the ancient rites, even though attended with the highest success: thinking it to be of more importance to the p…

There is a difference between a man's prizing valor at a great rate, and valuing life at little; This I thought fit to premise before the lives of Pelopidas and Marcellus, who were both great men, but who both fell by their own rashness.

For he did not practice oratory with a view to pleading causes, nor would he stoop to salute, embrace, and entertain the vulgar, which were the usual insinuating arts by which many grew popular. Nor was he less severe, in requiring and observing the ancient Roman discipline in military affairs; not endeavoring, when he had the command, to ingratiate himself with his soldiers by popular flattery, t…

I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own; the virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life. men equally famous, not only for their virtues, but success; insomuch that they have left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest achievements to good fortune, or their own prudence and conduct.

On the other hand, the same Marcius bore witness for those who hold that a generous and noble nature, if it lack discipline, is apt to produce much that is worthless along with its better fruits, like a rich soil deprived of the husbandman's culture. But whereas other men found in glory the chief end of valour, he found the chief end of glory in his mother's gladness.

His conduct displayed many great inconsistencies and variations, not unnaturally, in accordance with the many and wonderful vicissitudes of his fortunes; but among the many strong passions of his real character, the one most prevailing of all was his ambition and desire of superiority, which appears in several anecdotes told of his sayings whilst he was a child. For never did fortune surround and…

His slowness in speaking, his long labour and pains in learning, his deliberation in entering into the sports of other children, his easy submission to everybody, as if he had no will of his own, made those who judge superficially of him, the greater number, esteem him insensible and stupid; and few only saw that this tardiness proceeded from stability, and discerned the greatness of his mind, and…

With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good. But virtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men's minds as to create at once both ad…

Among the many remarkable things that are related of Furius Camillus, it seems singular and strange above all, that he, who continually was in the highest commands, and obtained the greatest successes, was five times chosen dictator, triumphed four times, and was styled a second founder of Rome, yet never was so much as once consul. But the Alban lake, that is fed by no other waters but its own, a…

You, my boy, will be nothing small, but great one way or other, for good or else for bad. the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep.

But he was submissive to great men, beyond what seems agreeable to the Spartan temper, and could easily bear the haughtiness of those who were in power, when it was any way for his advantage, which some are of opinion is no small part of political discretion.

He descended from Valerius, a man amongst the early citizens, reputed the principal reconciler of the differences betwixt the Romans and Sabines, and one that was most instrumental in persuading their kings to assent to peace and union. Now Valerius was troubled that his desire to serve his country should be doubted, because he had sustained no private injury from the insolence of the tyrants.

I spent several days and nights in mid-September with an ailing pig and I feel driven to account for this stretch of time, more particularly since the pig died at last, and I lived, and things might easily have gone the other way round and none left to do the accounting. The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig.

For that Solon was not proof against beauty, nor of courage to stand up to passion and meet it- "Hand to hand as in the ring," we may conjecture by his poems, and one of his laws, in which there are practices forbidden to slaves, which he would appear, therefore, to recommend to freemen. Solon, as Hermippus writes, when his father had ruined his estate in doing benefits and kindnesses to other men…

Standing at the base of a mountain, looking up at an unknown region desired; man is positioned at the physical symbol for all of his hopes and desires. It is not the erasure of this desire, but the orientation of this desire, which marks the maturity of the man.

Suddenly the sky was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. He was endued with a soul rarely tempered by nature, and disposed to virtue, which he had yet more subdued by discipline, a severe life, and the study of philosophy;…

He is often quoted in classrooms and carved into memory by a few famous lines, yet the fuller story is quieter, more human, and far more instructive. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely anything is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest. Soon after, an overture was made to him by the queen, that she would herself in some way destroy the infant, upon condition that he would marry her when he came to the crown.

Some are of opinion that the Pelasgians, wandering over the greater part of the habitable world, and subduing numerous nations, fixed themselves here, and, from their own great strength in war, called the city Rome. Tarchetius, hearing this, in great anger imprisoned them both, purposing to put them to death, but being deterred from murder by the goddess Vesta in a dream, enjoined them for their p…

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, the legendary Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains an enduring figure in history not merely for his tactical brilliance but for the profound depths of his personal character. To attempt to portray the life of Jackson while leaving out the religious element would be like undertaking to describe Switzerland without making mention of the Alps.

What emerges is a portrait of a man who understood that public leadership rests on private conduct. In an age drawn to noise and immediacy, Pericles reminds us that strength often speaks most clearly through restraint.

He stood that hardest of all strains, the strain of bearing himself well thru the gray evening of failure; and therefore out of what seemed failure he helped to build the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all his countrymen, North and South, share. From the close of the war to the time of his death all his great powers were devoted to two objects: to the reconciliation of…

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the…

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the goo…

To believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.

It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagination, or fancy, (which I shall use promiscuously,) I here mean such as arise from visible objects , either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion. A man of polite imagination is let into…

Statues serve as timeless tributes to the heroes who shaped the nation, capturing their essence in classical forms of bronze and marble. These statues are more than men frozen in time; they represent the lineage and traditions that we are a part of.

Facing gods, monsters, and human foes, Odysseus embodies a multifaceted vision of masculinity that transcends brute force, emphasizing cunning, endurance, and emotional depth. Ultimately, Homer's epic affirms that true manhood lies in returning home-not just physically, but as a wiser, more complete self.

Over the last century, men's fashion has undergone a dramatic evolution, shifting from structured elegance to widespread casualization-a trend that has diminished the intentional beauty in daily attire. Yet, this decline presents an opportunity for revival.

In an era where mixed-gender environments dominate educational landscapes, the merits of all-male spaces deserve renewed attention. Fraternity, the profound sense of brotherhood, has been a cornerstone of cultural history since antiquity.

In the early 19th century, as the United States sought to solidify its identity, a bold artistic commission was made: to memorialize George Washington not as a mere statesman, but as a figure of timeless, classical greatness. Beneath his leg lies a sword-an explicit nod to the story of Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who took up power when his country needed him, only to relinquish it and return to…

The Romans had a simple word for the kind of man other men wanted at their side when things got hard: virtus. Strip away the marble and Latin, and you get the backbone of a life that works.

The management of the public revenue–that searching operation in all governments–is among the most delicate and important trusts in ours, and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official solicitude. But the bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible.

As Americans, we are the inheritors of the greatest cultural tradition that has ever existed on Planet Earth: Western Civilization. There is a tension in the minds of many Americans right now; a lot of us are wondering what we can do to fight back against the self-evident evils that are increasingly encroaching on American values.

One who desires an understanding of the cosmos and how to debate policy, to contemplate Greece and wrestle with Virginia, to study history and to apply those lessons to the present. Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has inserted itself into our lives.

He told me there was a group of guys he wanted me to meet, a group of Anglicans in Virginia building something extraordinary. There is a great joy that comes when we are building something meaningful.

Reading them is like a meal for one's soul, leaving us to digest the power and wisdom behind these great quotes. Here we have compiled all twenty-eight quotes from the main lobby for you to read and digest for yourself.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. Far better it is to d…

Then the reputation of many would not have been imperiled on the eloquence or want of eloquence of one, and their virtues believed or not as he spoke well or ill. For it is difficult to say neither too little nor too much; and even moderation is apt not to give the impression of truthfulness.

Michael has deep expertise in the eminent political philosopher Leo Strauss. Through one lens, our problems can be traced to this trajectory:

He walked away from wealth and comfort to serve his nation, fought in Washington's militia, lived and studied with Thomas Jefferson, and led 40 men through the American wilderness for two and a half years. In the prime of his life at the age of 35 years old he would meet cold, merciless fate on the Natchez Trace some 70 miles from Nashville.

We navigate frontiers daily. Until we find in-person gatherings that cultivate adventurous thought, like The Wagon Box, where we truly get to experience thinking on the frontier of what we know, we are still living in that illusion.

For to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become so by neglect of that caution. In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

A man's reputation is only what others think him to be; his character, what God knows him to be. An act often repeated hardens into a habit, and a habit long continued petrifies into character

For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, – if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk. Yet how can one elevate the status of a walk to the same rank as the spiritual salvation of the human soul, promised by Jesus in his utteranc…

While these may seem like esoteric philosophic questions, they are actually of central practical importance, as Strauss tells us. He alerts us to a crisis: the near-death of political philosophy today and discusses its causes as well as our possible paths forward.

The cause? A disagreement over a mathematical formula during a wedding feast. He did not wait for someone to hand him a telescope; he invented his own tools.

On one side stood the philosophers, seekers of truth, advocates for the examined life. They didn't care whether a claim was true-only whether it could be made convincing.

Have you ever met a man with a truly great memory? Your memory is already far better than you realize, you just have to wake it up.

I would have missed out big time. There's a lot of smart people here and good connections.

This weekend felt more real than every other weekend before this, of this this year I would even say. That's a really hard thing to find is someone who actually wants to listen but then also wants to teach on top of that.

But more importantly, he lived a remarkable life, one that "thinkers" today do not even aspire to. In a sense, Socrates set himself against the "intellectual elite" while receiving praise from prominent generals of his day.

I am frequently horrified at the site of couples eating out in public, sitting across a table from one another, and paying no attention whatsoever to the other person and instead feeding their attention to whatever social media algorithm had enslaved them for the moment. Eventually you experience the phenomena of the guests building their ideas upon the ideas of the last speaker, and the philosoph…

The books worth reading aren't the ones written to trend. They've been passed down not because they were clever, but because they were true.

In the great saga of American exploration, Meriwether Lewis may have been the dreamer, the thinker, and the mystic-but William Clark was the doer, the draftsman, and the bedrock. He was not the most educated, the most brilliant, or the most celebrated. But he was indispensable.

It's not made of bullets or bayonets, but dopamine hits and algorithmic rabbit holes. You feel it, don't you?

Because what are columns, really? They're not just stone supports holding up a roof. They're symbols of human values. They're stories cast in marble. You see, men were meant to build things-not just in wood or stone, but in character, in legacy, in spirit.

Behind you walk the spirit of thinkers who believed that truth could be heard in the rustle of trees, that character could be forged in solitude, and that a man ought to live in alignment with the nature that bore him. These were not escapists.

With a single stroke of the pen, he more than doubled the size of the young republic, acquiring a staggering 828,000 square miles of territory from France in what we now call the Louisiana Purchase. Stick to his political principles-or seize the opportunity of a century?

Mirror neurons, those tiny architects of empathy and desire, fire when we witness excellence. You become what you behold.

Located near Spencer, Fall Creek Falls State Park is often hailed as Tennessee's crown jewel. For a quieter retreat, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park near Jamestown is a hidden treasure.

That feeling is the beginning of a journey into astronomy-a journey that can transform not just what you know, but who you are. Few experiences inspire awe like contemplating the vastness of the universe.

The debate between Thomas Hobbes and John Locke over human nature isn't just a dusty philosophical relic-it's a lens through which we can examine our lives, our governments, and the world we inhabit. Are we selfish creatures needing control, or rational beings capable of cooperation?

In the grand sweep of Western political thought, few moments stand out as more consequential than the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. What makes Magna Carta so revolutionary is not just that its authors had the courage to resist a king-but that they had the wisdom to put their resistance in writing.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

Led to an open plain, Colter was given a head start before hundreds of warriors gave chase, their war cries piercing the air. In a desperate bid for survival, Colter stopped abruptly, turning to face his pursuer.

Imagine yourself miles from civilization, armed with little more than a flint, a blade, and your own ingenuity. Self-reliance isn't just about enduring the desert-it's about bending it to their will, proving that even the harshest places offer sustenance to those who know where to look.

Human beings are naturally wired for stories. A well-told story isn't just entertainment; it has the power to guide us, prepare us for hardships, and give meaning to our experiences.

There's something about the vastness of nature that turns down the noise of everyday life and cranks up the volume on your inner voice. It's not about conquering the mountain-it's about conquering the doubts holding you back.

In an age of DMs, tweets, and endless Zoom calls, something vital has been lost: the power of the spoken word. A man who couldn't articulate his thoughts was considered unfit to lead, to teach, even to fully participate in public life.

Benjamin Franklin was not only one of America's most important Founding Fathers; he was also a man of remarkable wisdom. His personal philosophy, reflected in his writings and actions, offers timeless lessons that are still valuable today.

What makes a "Great Book" so great? The book needs to communicate deeply thought-provoking ideas consistently.

There is something truly magical about that state of focus, some call it a flow state, that lets us tap into some superpower that we have deep down inside all of us. Yet now we live in a world that is increasingly trying to encroach and rob us of that ability to focus.

Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of its members

Many who engage in a consistent writing practice will find the first challenge a daunting one; that of turning thoughts into words, the non-linear into the linear, the chaos into order. It is an exercise that, when done intentionally, exposes the deepest levels of our psyche.

Common souls pay with that which they do, nobler souls with that which they are" – Emerson History is not just a list of dead dates and places, but the story of the human soul in action through the hands and hearts of adventurous men.