Socrates is a 1759 French play in three acts written by Voltaire. It is set in Ancient Greece during the events just before the trial and death of Greek philosopher Socrates. It is heavy with satire specifically at government authority and organized religion.
Voltaire, pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet, (born November 21, 1694, Paris, France—died May 30, 1778, Paris), one of the greatest of all French writers. Although only a few of his works are still read, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. Through its critical capacity, wit, and satire, Voltaire’s work vigorously propagates an ideal of progress to which people of all nations have remained responsive. His long life spanned the last years of classicism and the eve of the revolutionary era, and during this age of transition his works and activities influenced the direction taken by European civilization.
Voltaire’s background was middle class. According to his birth certificate he was born on November 21, 1694, but the hypothesis that his birth was kept secret cannot be dismissed, for he stated on several occasions that in fact it took place on February 20. He believed that he was the son of an officer named Rochebrune, who was also a songwriter. He had no love for either his putative father, François Arouet, a onetime notary who later became receiver in the Cour des Comptes (audit office), or his elder brother Armand. Almost nothing is known about his mother, of whom he hardly said anything. Having lost her when he was seven, he seems to have become an early rebel against family authority. He attached himself to his godfather, the abbé de Châteauneuf, a freethinker and an epicurean who presented the boy to the famous courtesan Ninon de Lenclos when she was in her 84th year. It is doubtless that he owed his positive outlook and his sense of reality to his bourgeois origins.
He attended the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he learned to love literature, the theatre, and social life. While he appreciated the classical taste the college instilled in him, the religious instruction of the fathers served only to arouse his skepticism and mockery. He witnessed the last sad years of Louis XIV and was never to forget the distress and the military disasters of 1709 nor the horrors of religious persecution. He retained, however, a degree of admiration for the sovereign, and he remained convinced that the enlightened kings are the indispensable agents of progress.
He decided against the study of law after he left college. Employed as secretary at the French embassy in The Hague, he became infatuated with the daughter of an adventurer. Fearing scandal, the French ambassador sent him back to Paris. Despite his father’s wishes, he wanted to devote himself wholly to literature, and he frequented the Temple, then the centre of freethinking society. After the death of Louis XIV, under the morally relaxed Regency, Voltaire became the wit of Parisian society, and his epigrams were widely quoted. But when he dared to mock the dissolute regent, the duc d’Orléans, he was banished from Paris and then imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year (1717). Behind his cheerful facade, he was fundamentally serious and set himself to learn the accepted literary forms. In 1718, after the success of Oedipe, the first of his tragedies, he was acclaimed as the successor of the great classical dramatist Jean Racine and thenceforward adopted the name of Voltaire.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO SURVIVE? What sacrifices would you endure for a better life? Would you swim a vast river? Would you trek across a desert or float through a malarial rainforest? How about breaking out of a slave plantation? Boarding a leaky ship? Escaping a siege?
Outlanders is a compilation of ten real-life stories from refugees and asylum seekers, whom the author met while working in the field of refugee resettlement in the US and Ireland. They are old people and young, recently arrived and well established, originating from Afghanistan, Burma, Laos, Somalia, Iraq, South Africa, Bosnia and Palestine.
Outlanders is the first work of its kind to explore the subject from a creative perspective, setting it apart from previous journalistic work available on the subject. The stories are presented in a style that immerses the reader in the journey of the refugee, the sights, smells, sounds they experienced, how it felt along the way. These unique individual narratives are bound together by recurring themes: daily life, the eruption of conflict and the privations endured to escape it. Outlanders offers a glimpse into the lives of the displaced, not through screen or newsfeed, but through the very eyes of those who survived.
Unbowed: A Soldier's Journey Back from Paralysis is the story of a dramatic recovery from diagnosed quadriplegia to a level of functionality rarely seen.
Billy Hedderman was body boarding on the Sunshine Coast, Australia on New Year's Eve 2014, when a wave dumped him into the sand. He broke his neck, back and suffered immediate spinal cord damage, paralysing him from the neck down. Lucky not to drown, Billy was rushed to Queensland's premier spinal injuries unit where he began the difficult road to recovery. Yet incredibly within seven months of his injury, the incomplete quadriplegic ran a 10 km race in Brisbane in under one hour.
Billy details how his previous life experience – such as service in the elite Special Forces unit Army Ranger Wing, and the death of his two close friends – have assisted in his mental toughness to prevail against all expectations. The book provides insight into Irish Special Forces from a recent serving tactical commander. Billy is currently a serving Captain in the Australian Infantry.
Life is hard in Barrow, Alaska. Football mom Cathy Parker first caught a glimpse of this far-away reality from the comfort of her Jacksonville, Florida, living room while watching a 2006 ESPN report on the Barrow Whalers, a high school football team consisting mostly of Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo natives playing in the most difficult of conditions and trying to overcome the most unlikely of odds. These players—raised in the northernmost town in the United States, where drug abuse is rampant and the high school dropout rate is high—found themselves playing on a gravel field, using flour to draw the lines. And while the community of Barrow felt a strong pride for their boys, many felt football was not worth the investment. That is, until Cathy Parker became involved.
Overcome by a surprising stirring in her soul to reach out and help, Cathy was determined to build a suitable field for the Barrow Whalers. Not fully understanding the many obstacles, both financially and logistically, that would line the path ahead, Cathy charged forward with a determined spirit and a heart for both the football team and the greater community of Barrow. She spearheaded a campaign that raised more than half-a-million dollars through people all around the country rallying around one common goal: changing the lives of young men through football.
This is not just the story of how the Barrow Whalers became the first high school above the Arctic Circle to have a football program. This is the story of how we are sometimes called to the most unlikely of causes and to believe in something a little bit bigger, changing our own lives and the lives of others for the better in the most unexpected of ways.
Follow along on the journey with photos available in the audiobook companion PDF download.
“I cannot live without books.”
“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
― Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams and as the first United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration of Independence. As a Virginia legislator, he drafted a state law for religious freedom. He served as the second Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. In 1785, Jefferson was appointed the United States Minister to France, and subsequently, the nation's first secretary of state under President George Washington from 1790 to 1793. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System. With Madison, he anonymously wrote the provocative Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 and 1799, which sought to strengthen states' rights by nullifying the federal Alien and Sedition Acts.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL BOOK.
This is a summary, & it does not accompany the official
In 'Elon Musk' by Walter Isaacson, the book explores the complex and fascinating life of Elon Musk, the visionary entrepreneur. From his troubled childhood in South Africa, where he faced both physical and emotional challenges, to his rise as the richest man on earth in 2022, Musk's journey is one of resilience and ambition.
Musk's father, an engineer with a charismatic yet rogue personality, left a lasting impact on his psyche. This influence shaped Musk into a tough and vulnerable individual, marked by mood swings, a high tolerance for risk, a penchant for drama, an unwavering sense of purpose, and an intense, sometimes callous, drive.
Isaacson, who spent two years closely shadowing Musk, presents an inside story filled with triumphs and turmoil. The book raises thought-provoking questions about whether the demons that have driven Musk are also the driving forces behind innovation and progress. It offers a revealing glimpse into the life of one of the most influential and enigmatic figures of our time.
Called the “Queen of Beauty” and the most influential lone woman to impact the beauty industry since Estée Lauder by The New York Times, Leslie Blodgett’s story is anything but ordinary. As the CEO of BareMinerals, she reinvented how beauty was sold by tapping into the power of community before the idea of social media existed. In 2006, Blodgett took the company public in one of the largest cosmetic IPOs of the decade, and in 2010, the company was acquired for $1.8 billion.
Pretty Good Advice is her next chapter. This refreshing book features ninety-seven candid and entertaining insights on business, life, and beauty. Personal and often surprising, Blodgett dishes on leading with humor, why wearing blush and reading obituaries are two of the most optimistic things you can do, and why you owe it to your co-workers not to be boring. Pretty Good Advice is full of frank, actionable advice to help light a fire under you.