BRIEF
Daily brief - Sun May 17 2026
Which trait condemned in this passage do you also carry? Where does it show up?
Theme: shadow · card 1/4 · 2026-05-17
“Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia saepe loquentes, Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe ferantur, Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse.” [“Surely where many, often talking in their sleep, or raving in disease, are said to have betrayed themselves, and to have given publicity to offences long concealed.”--Lucretius, v. 1157.] Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself flayed by the Scythians and afterwards boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart muttered these words “I am the cause of all these mischiefs that have befallen thee.” Epicurus said that no hiding-hole could conceal the wicked, since they could never assure themselves of being hid whilst their conscience discovered them to themselves.
— Michel de Montaigne, Essays of Michel de Montaigne (Complete)
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If you took the passage seriously for one quarter, what would change in your calendar?
Theme: direction · card 2/4 · 2026-05-17
At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when they began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this became covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin, built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of Winter, that old man we see in the almanac,—his shanty, as if he had a design to estivate with us.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
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If you could only carry one sentence from this passage into the rest of your life, which would it be, and what would you have to give up to live by it?
Theme: core_values · card 3/4 · 2026-05-17
I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays - First Series
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Which kind of practice would you take up this month if you took this passage as instruction?
Theme: growth · card 4/4 · 2026-05-17
“Thinking often on these things, the use of hats and garments dyed with a dye hurtful to them, and wearing more clothes in summer than are useful, grew more uneasy to me; believing them to be customs which have not their foundation in pure wisdom. The apprehension of being singular from my beloved friends was a strait upon me; and thus I continued in the use of some things, contrary to my judgment, about nine months. Then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur, but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me. On this account I was under close exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in 1762, greatly desiring to be rightly directed; when, being deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord, I was made willing to submit to what I apprehended was required of me; and when I returned home, got a hat of the natural color of the fur.
— William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
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