My Reading Of Don Quixote: The Ingenious Gentleman Of La Mancha

“Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny horse and a greyhound for racing” - Opening Passage to Don Quixote: The Ingenious Gentleman Of La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes.

Don Quixote on his horse, Rocinante, accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza on his donkey, Dapple. Together they set out looking to right wrongs and root evil out of the world, with hilarious effects.

At long last I have finally managed to finish reading Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece, and it has enlarged my mind. I started reading this book in September 2015 and only have managed to finish it this week - 24 April/30 April. It is a thick volume book and I had other reading and writing demands competing for my attention. I had initially thought that on finishing this book, I would write a long treatise on its timeless lessons, but I am in the middle of writing a political treatise of my own so will not be able to do that after all. Instead, I found this short passage, on the Miguel de Cervantes Facebook Page, it captures the essence of Don Quixote and how he is a mirror reflection of every human being; 

Our ceaseless human quest for something larger than ourselves has never been represented with more insight and love than in this story of Don Quixote – pursuing his vision of glory in a mercantile age – and his shrewd, skeptical man servant, Sancho Panza. As they set out to right the world’s wrongs in knightly combat, the narrative moves from philosophical speculation to broad comedy, taking in pastoral, farce, and fantasy on the way. The first and still the greatest of all European novels, Don Quixote has been as important for the modern world as the poems of Homer were for the ancients. 

Don Quixote is a great book and should be read by everyone. I have now read all the great books from antiquity with the exception of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which I have deliberately set aside. I will read that book in the original when my learning of the Russian language permits it.

Don Quixote on his horse, Rocinante, accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza on his donkey, Dapple. Together they set out looking to right wrongs and root evil out of the world, with hilarious effects.

My Favourite Author Of Recent Antiquity (circa AD 1962)

I learned from the best.

One of the authors who influenced my world view and general thought patterns (question everything) is Alistair MaClean. The first book of his I read was Night Without End, but the book that had me choosing to read more into military sciences was The Satan Bug. The passage below is what the men and women of letters would call hyperbole, but to me it is the only way you can grab your audience’s undivided attention. 

The story so far, there has been a break-in at a biological warfare complex in Britain, no one knows what has been stolen. The main investigator now gets to find out the truly awful nature of the biological weapons being perfected here. Now read on:  

The Satan Bug 

"I have no such fears of a nuclear Armageddon and I sleep well at nights. Such war will never come. I listen to the Russians rattling their rockets, and I smile. I listen to the Americans rattling theirs, and I smile again. For I know that all the time the two giant powers are shaking their sabres in their scabbards, while threatening each other with so many hundreds of megaton carrying missiles, they are not really thinking about their missiles at all. They are thinking, gentlemen, of Mordon, for we - the British, I should say - have made it our business to ensure the great nations understand exactly what is going on behind the fences of Mordon."

He tapped the brickwork beside him. "Behind this very wall here. The ultimate weapon. The world's one certain guarantee of peace. The term 'ultimate weapon' has been used too freely, has come almost to lose its meaning. But the term, in this case, is precise and exact. If by 'ultimate' one means total annihilation."

He smiled, a little self-consciously.

"I'm being melodramatic, a little? Perhaps. My Latin blood shall we say? But listen carefully, gentlemen, and try to understand the full significance of what I'm going to say. Not the General and Colonel, of course, they already know: but you Superintendent, and you, Mr Cavell."

"We have developed in Mordon here over forty different types of plague germs. I will confine myself to two. One of them is a derivative of the botulinus toxin - which we had developed in World War II. As a point of interest, a quarter of a million troops in England were inoculated against this toxin just before D - Day and I doubt whether any of them know to this day what they were inoculated against."

"We have refined this toxin into a fantastic and shocking weapon compared to which even the mightiest hydrogen bomb is a child's toy. Six ounces of this toxin, gentlemen, distributed fairly evenly throughout the world would destroy every man, woman and child alive on this planet today. No flight of fancy." His voice was weighted with heavy emphasis, his face still and sombre. "This is simple fact. Give me an airplane and let me fly over London on a windless summer afternoon with no more than a gramme of botulinus to scatter and by evening seven million Londoners would be dead. A thimbleful in its water reservoirs and London would become one vast charnel house. If God does not strike me down for using the term 'ideal' in this connection, then this is the ideal form of germ warfare. The botulinus toxin oxidises after twelve hours exposure and becomes harmless. Twelve hours after country A releases a few grammes of botulinus over country B it can send its soldiers in without any fear of attack by either the toxin or the defending soldiers. For the defending soldiers would all be dead. And the civilians, the men, the women, the children. They would all be dead. All dead."

Gregori fumbled in his pocket for another cigarette. His hands were shaking and he made no attempt to conceal the fact. He was probably unaware of it....

"Is it possible?" Hardanger's tone was dry but his face was set. "A deadlier poison than this damn botulinus? Seems superfluous to me."

"Botulinus has its drawbacks," Gregori said quietly. "From a military viewpoint that is. Botulinus you must breathe or swallow to become infected. It is not contagious. Also, we suspect a few countries may have produced a form of vaccine against even the refined type of drug we have developed here. But there is no vaccine on earth to counteract the newest virus we have produced - and it's as contagious as a bush-fire"

"This other virus is a derivative of the polio virus - infantile paralysis, if you will - but a virus the potency of which has been increased a million times by - well, the methods don't matter and you wouldn't understand. What does matter is this: unlike botulinus, this new polio virus is indestructible - extremes of heat and cold, oxidisation and poison have no effect upon it and its life span appears to be indefinite, although we believe it impossible - we hope it impossible - that any virus could live for more than a month in an environment completely hostile to growth and development: unlike botulinus it is highly contagious, as well as being fatal if swallowed or breathed; and, most terrible of all, we have been unable to discover a vaccine for it. I myself am convinced that we can never discover a vaccine against it"

He smiled without humour. "To this virus we have given a highly unscientific name, but one that describes it perfectly - the Satan Bug. It is the most terrible and terrifying weapon mankind has ever known or will ever know."***

***Maclean, Alistair (1962) The Satan Bug. London: William Collins Sons & Co.

The Plan Has Always Been To Flood Zimbabwe...

…with books (and goodwill).

My Hotel in Barcelona for the Half Marathon there. 

I will run many Half Marathons in 2016 and two of these will be in the first quarter – the first one in Barcelona and the second one in London. It is now possible for me to travel again as I have now managed to free the necessary time after 5 years of hard studying. I have also decided to make, from hereon, all my 21 Kilometre Road Races about sending books to Zimbabwe. The details of how I will accomplish this are unimportant at this stage. I will say more about that as the day draws closer. 

I like a comfortable place to, if truth be told, keep my bags in as I rarely sleep in my hotel room since there is always so much to see when I am abroad.

At this point I just want to justify why I have chosen to say in a 4 Star Hotel in Barcelona when, had I stayed at a Hostel, that would have freed about £200.00 which could go towards my sending books to Zimbabwe project. 

My reason is this; when I ran in the Ealing Half Marathon in September, I stayed at a Hostel and, I promise you this, you do NOT want to spend a single night in a Hostel. For someone like me, who is security conscious, staying in a Hostel is all the things I fear rolled into one nightmare. I stayed in a room with 14 bunk beds with total strangers, lying on my bed I could touch the ceiling, a woman was on the bed below mine, there were no windows, everyone comes and goes as they please… need I say more?

To the question why do I not stay in a Hostel and save money instead for my books to Zimbabwe project? I must answer; I know the people of Zimbabwe and they would be very upset to learn that I stayed in a hovel to be able to give them books.

A 101 Quotes On Education

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

"Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this Republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union" - President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

"By selecting the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated" - Thomas Jefferson.

"It matters little to me whether my pupil is intended for the army, the church, or the law. Before his parents chose a calling for him nature called him to be a man. Life is the trade I would teach him. When he leaves me, I grant you, he will be neither a magistrate, a soldier, nor a priest; he will be a man. All that becomes a man he will learn as quickly as another. In vain will fate change his station, he will always be in his right place" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile or On Education, 1762.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be" - Thomas Jefferson.

"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity" - Aristotle.

"He who opens a school door, closes a prison" - Victor Hugo.

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows" - Sydney J. Harris.

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet" - Aristotle.

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance" - Will Durant.

"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time" - Chinese Proverb.

"Do you know the secret of the true scholar? In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him; and in that I am his pupil" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" - Nelson Mandela.

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself" - Chinese Proverb.

"Learning is never done without errors and defeat" - Vladimir Lenin.

"If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people" - Chinese Proverb. 

"No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity" - Thomas Jefferson.

"Learning never exhausts the mind" - Leonardo da Vinci.

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done" - Jean Piaget.

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all" - Aristotle.

"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul" - Joseph Addison.

"You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation" - Brigham Young.

"You can never be overdressed or over educated" - Oscar Wilde.

“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of man” – Horace Mann.

“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each” – Plato.

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one” – Malcolm Forbes.

"There is no knowledge that is not power" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way” – George Evans.

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained” – James A. Garfield.

"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation" - Walter Cronkite.

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value" – Albert Einstein.

"Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement" – W. Clement Stone.

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not” - St Augustine of Hippo.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it" – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

"The mind is everything. What you think you become" – Buddha.

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why" – Mark Twain.

"A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue" - Patrice Lumumba.

“If we encounter a man [or woman] of rare intellect, we should ask him [or her] what books he [or she] reads” - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind" - Plato, The Republic.

"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day" - Plato, The Republic.

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now" – Chinese Proverb.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in" - Greek Proverb.

"It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs" - Aristotle.

“Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army” - Edward Everett.

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be" – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake" - Aristotle.

"No one can escape his destiny" - Plato.

"A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules" - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513.

"Therefore sages and intelligent princes are what they are, not because they are able to go to the bottom of all things, but because they understand what is essential in all things" - The Book of Lord Shang.

"To distinguish between the sun and moon is no test of vision, to hear the thunderclap is no indication of acute hearing" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them” - Mark Twain.

"The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it" - John Locke.

"Happy is he who knows the causes of things" - Virgil.

"This education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined" - Alexander Pope.

"Seek knowledge even as far as China" - Hadith.

"We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth" - John Lubbock.

"He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

"In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself" - Adam Smith. 

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" - Plato, The Republic.

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned" - Mark Twain.

"If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him" - Benjamin Franklin.

"I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits" - John Locke.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience" - Jean de la Bruyere.

"Is to dispute well logic's chiefest end? Affords this art no greater miracle? Then read no more, thou hast attain'd that end; A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit" - Christopher Marlowe, The Tragicall History of Dr Faustus.