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Books, A to Z On 2 of the 12 ideas

The Imitation of Christ

Thomas à Kempis 1427

2 Echoes

Ideas we have traced through this book

08

Keep your death in mind

Echoes

Thomas says that thinking on death more often than on length of life would make you “strive more earnestly to improve”. He credits no one; Moses and David are named for other points.

  1. by the 2nd c. BCE
    “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

    Psalm 90. Earliest we can find, more than 1,500 years earlier.

  2. 1427
    “If thou thoughtest upon thy death more often than how long thy life should be, thou wouldest doubtless strive more earnestly to improve.”

Full text read.

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (1.21), tr. William Benham (1909).

Project Gutenberg eBook #1653, gutenberg.org/ebooks/1653.

10

Live one day at a time

Echoes

Care about future events brings only “sorrow upon sorrow”, the chapter says, quoting “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” with a footnote mark. It names no source that we can find.

  1. 23 BCE
    “A wise deity shrouds in obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal is solicitous beyond the law of nature. Be mindful to manage duly that which is present.”

    Horace, Odes. Earliest we can find, about 1,450 years earlier.

  2. 1427
    “What doth care about future events bring thee, save sorrow upon sorrow? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.”

Full text read.

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book III ch. 30, tr. William Benham (1909).

Project Gutenberg eBook #1653, gutenberg.org/ebooks/1653.

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