Sparks Commentary

“I cannot live without books; but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.” – Thomas Jefferson , in a let...

“The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Dec...

In 1986, there were two versions of “The Story of English” – a television series, and a book. I never got to see much of the television seri...

“If you know the enemy and know yourself , you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for ...

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. H...

“I admit that, provided the subjects remained always in submission, the prince's interest would indeed be that it should be powerful, ...

“We hope that this book, which knows how to say the important and say it well, contributes to spread linguistic knowledge that usually re...

“The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, 'This is mine,' and found people simple eno...

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates at his trial, as recorded by Plato's “Apology” Before beginning this project...

"The political liberty of the [citizen] is a tranquillity of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order t...

You might try the Loeb Classical Library , described at Wikipedia here and found at this website here . (The rest of this post is about h...

"The study of Ancient Greek has long been a bookish pursuit , and rightly so. For this language we have only the books (and other wri...

"We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for o...

"Written by a team of pioneering archaeologists and acknowledged experts working at the cutting edge of Egyptology ... " - Th...

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to ...

"The term 'Near East' is not widely used today. It has survived in a scholarship rooted in the nineteenth century when it was...

So I recently finished reading " El español a través de la lingüística: Preguntas y respuestas " ("Spanish Through Linguistic...

"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the L ORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and ma...

So I recently read a book called "Historical Linguistics" (3rd edition) , by Winfred P. Lehmann , which talks about the way that...

"[The Mexican Empire] solemnly declares by means of the Supreme Junta of the Empire that it is a Sovereign nation and independent of...