The former post was deleted as it violated our user agreement, or it did not add to the "Great Books" conversation in a constructive manner.

The new Charles Darwin Forum may be found at http://westerncanon.com/bookforums/forumdisplay.php?f=36 .

To foster quality discussion forums throughout Western Canon, from now on only registered members may post. Spam will not be tolerated. If you would like to help moderate, please contact "jolly roger ship @ yahoo . com".

Please register at http://westerncanon.com/bookforums to post in the future.

We prefer deep reflections on Philosophy, Shakespearean Sonnets, and tender musings along the lines of:

CXXI

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
  Unless this general evil they maintain,
  All men are bad and in their badness reign.
 	--William Shakespeare

CXIV

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best,
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, 
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
  If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
 	--William Shakespeare

It is our continuing goal to foster the world's greatest converstation.

In the future, please register and make all posts to http://westerncanon.com/bookforums,

and/or join the forums at Great Books & Philosophy Forums @ jollyrogerwest.com.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. --Albert Einstein

All The Best,

William Einstein Shakespeare :)

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. -Voltaire, Taste, 1764