Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words...

Ken Bresler requests a source for “God looks down and judges.”

“Tyranny of the left versus that of the right…dogs and cats” (March-April). Thomas Owen forwarded this unattributed anecdote from Leo Tolstoy (1946; page 651), by Ernest J. Simmons: “When asked ‘Is there not a difference between the killing that a revolutionist does and that which a policeman does?’ Tolstoy answered: ‘There is as much difference between cat-shit and dog-shit. But I don’t like the smell of either one or the other.’”

“Carving nature at her joints” (May-June). Lydia Kirsopp Lake was the first to identify Plato as the ultimate source of this concept, seen (in Harold N. Fowler’s translations for the Loeb Classical Library) in Phaedrus 265 d-e, “dividing things again by classes, where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver,” and in Statesman 287c, “Let us divide them, then, like an animal that is sacrificed, by joints.”

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

You might also like

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.

The popular Harvard English professor published Under Water this spring.

Most popular

The stakes are high for this husband and wife: one of them will die if they don’t find a cure.

Harvard's eugenics era

When academics embraced scientific racism, immigration restrictions, and the suppression of “the unfit”

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Explore More From Current Issue

A flooded office scene with computers, a woman working, and a pink sunset backdrop.

A College student’s attempt to recapture the romanticism of the workplace.

University Hall with steps and the John Harvard statue, surrounded by trees and a grassy lawn.

Long-discussed reorganization includes layoffs and the end of the Dudley Community.

Three actors perform on stage, with one actor interacting closely with another, set against abstract backgrounds.

The play Spare Parts is a contemporary fable about the quest to live forever.