Showing results for "What Is the What" in Classics

In this thought-provoking dialogue, Mark Twain strips away illusions about free will, morality, and the nature of human behavior. Presented as a sharp exchange between a young idealist and a seasoned philosopher, What Is Man? challenges cherished beliefs, probing whether humans are truly autonomous or simply products of their training, environment, and inherent machinery.

Locked in his desk for 25 years, What Is Man? was Twain's most serious, philosophical, and private work. The narrative appears in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a romantic young idealist and an elderly cynic. The pair debate issues of mankind, such as whether man is free to act or is more of a machine, whether personal merit is meaningless given how the environment shapes us, and if man truly has impulses other than to pursue pleasure and avoid pain.

Now I'm going to tell you a story that I heard when I was a little fellow and that I like better and better the more I think of it. For it's the same with stories as with many people; the older they grow, the nicer they grow, and that is delightful.

Charles Dickens is just great, this is just a short little note about how we change as we get older and how Christmas becomes more for others and less about ourselves as we get older.

A Dickens Christmas story about charity, hope, and forgiveness, with a touch of remembrance and loss. This very mature story looks back throughout one's life, promises made, aspirations filled and unfilled, love gained and lost, and many other such touching moments in everyone's life. An American voice was used per listener request.

This beautiful story by Charles Dickens reflects the musings of one looking back at what Christmas has been and what it seems now that the maturity of years has allowed wisdom denied to the Christmas of youth. For the mature there are far more Christmas guests than others may see. People long removed from the breath of life find a home in the remembrances of those who really understand this holiday.

Originally published in the 1851 Christmas edition of Dickens's journal Household Words, "What Christmas Is as We Grow Older" is an essay suggesting that Christmas should be a time of gratitude and forgiveness. This version of "What Christmas Is as We Grow Older" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

A peasant and his wife owned a horse that grazed in a ditch close to their house. But they thought that it would be better for them to sell it or exchange it for something more useful. The woman sent her husband to town to exchange the horse - she trusted him because "what the old man does Is always right"! - Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist.