The Saunterer

Margaret Fuller on what music is for

    Music, said Margaret Fuller, excels at inspiring thought:

Music, by the fluent medium, the stimulus, and the upbearing elasticity it offers for the inspiration of thought, alone seems to present a living form, rather than a dead monument, to the desires of genius. What the other arts indicate, and philosophy infers, this all-enfolding language declares. (Quoted from the title page of Letters from New York (Second Series), by L. Maria Child. 1845. New York: C. S. Francis & Co.)

    For a brief biography of Sarah Margaret Fuller, click here.

Leo Tolstoy on how to live well

      Work and love are essential co-ingredients of living well, wrote Leo Tolstoy:

One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one’s work. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. C. Romesburg. p. 184.)

    For a brief biography of Leo Tolstoy, click here.

Paul Ehrenfest on the importance of asking stupid questions

    Every problem is a problem within a framework. Stupid questions make us question the framework. By this we may discover that the framework is the basic problem. By abandoning the framework for another, the problem can oftentimes be made to go poof, disappear. This, if the Saunterer has twisted Paul Ehrenfest’s idea, is a good twist. You be the judge of what he said:

Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to appear stupid. The stupid questions are usually the best and the hardest to answer. They force the speaker to think about the basic problem. (Quoted from A Passion for Mathematics: Numbers, Puzzles, Madness, Religion, and the Quest for Reality, by Clifford A. Pickover. 2005. John Wiley. p. 5)

    For a brief biography of Paul Ehrenfest, click here.