According to an ancient Sardinian legend the bodies of those who are born on Christmas Eve will never dissolve into dust but are preserved until the end of time.

I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.

Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.

Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200 000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people and doing physical things.

The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense and ornament it is its ancient and natural strength the floating bulwark of the island.

Academe n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy n.: A modern school where football is taught.

I work in an old tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You hold a mirror to crime to see what's happening in society. I could never write a crime story just for the sake of it because I always want to talk about certain things in society.

Similarly thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings but it includes the state of the body it includes the whole of society - as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2 000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods.

Unfortunately a lot of the concepts in the Bible are based on ancient mythology that doesn't fit the findings of science.

It more or less has the shape of a love song but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals fire danger of death stellar navigation and seasonal intuition.

The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland.

The engine of ancient society was religion but the engine of contemporary society as I see it is advertising.

But strictly speaking this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers.

No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece.

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

In ancient Greece politics and the market were not decoupled.

Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form and that it's timeless that it reaches back.

Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness vigor and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet especially not against their poetry.

From what the moderns want we must learn what poetry should become from what the ancients did what poetry must be.

The number of stressors has multiplied exponentially: traffic money success work/life balance the economy the environment parenting family conflict relationships disease. As the nature of human life has become far more complicated our ancient stress response hasn't been able to keep up.

Medical research in the twentieth century mostly takes place in the lab in the Renaissance though researchers went first and foremost to the library to see what the ancients had said.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe however that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

In marriage there are no manners to keep up and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

Well love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself you have no power over yourself you can't even think straight.

Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold clear night made brilliant by a glorious star the smell of incense shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby the incarnation of perfect love.

The legal principle placing the burden of proof on accusers rather than the accused can be traced back to Second and Third Century Roman jurist Julius Paulus Prudentissimus. Yet this ancient concept which forms the legal and moral cornerstone of the American judicial system is quickly being undermined in the name of 'national security.'