Mind Refreshment

/ Virgil /
"The gates of Hell are open night and day; smooth the descent, and easy is the way: but, to return, and view the cheerful skies; in this, the task and mighty labor lies."
"Virgil, or Vergil orig. Publius Vergilius Maro, (born Oct. 15, 70 bce, Andes, near Mantua—died Sept. 21, 19 bce, Brundisium), Greatest of Roman poets. The well-educated son of a prosperous provincial farmer, Virgil led a quiet life, though he eventually became a member of the circle around Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) and was patronized by Maecenas. His first major work, the 10 pastoral Eclogues (42–37), may be read as a prophecy of tranquility, and one has even been read as a prophecy of Christianity. The Georgics (37–30) point toward a Golden Age in the form of practical goals: the repopulation of rural lands and the rehabilitation of agriculture. His great epic, the Aeneid (begun c. 29, but unfinished at his death), is one of the masterpieces of world literature. A celebration of the founding of Rome by the legendary Aeneas at the request of Augustus, whose consolidation of power in 31–30 unified the Roman world, it also explores the themes of war and the pathos of unrequited love. In later centuries his works were regarded in the Roman Empire as virtually sacred. He was taken up reverently by Christians as well, including Dante, who, in his poem The Divine Comedy, made Virgil his guide through hell and purgatory." (Britannica)
Virgil (2015). “The Aeneid: "Illustrated"”, p.176

/ Wangari Maathai /
"When the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of future generations."
"Wangari Maathai (born April 1, 1940, Nyeri, Kenya—died September 25, 2011, Nairobi) was a Kenyan politician and environmental activist who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace, becoming the first Black African woman to win a Nobel Prize. Her work was often considered both unwelcome and subversive in her own country, where her outspokenness constituted stepping far outside traditional gender roles.
Maathai was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College; B.S. in biology, 1964) and at the University of Pittsburgh (M.S., 1966). In 1971 she received a Ph.D. at the University of Nairobi, effectively becoming the first woman in either East or Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She began teaching in the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi after graduation, and in 1977 she became chair of the department.
While working with the National Council of Women of Kenya, Maathai developed the idea that village women could improve the environment by planting trees to provide a fuel source and to slow the processes of deforestation and desertification. The Green Belt Movement, an organization she founded in 1977, had by the early 21st century planted some 30 million trees. Leaders of the Green Belt Movement established the Pan African Green Belt Network in 1986 in order to educate world leaders about conservation and environmental improvement. As a result of the movement’s activism, similar initiatives were begun in other African countries, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe." (Britannica)
'Nobel Lecture'

/ George Orwell /
"However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing."
"George Orwell, orig. Eric Arthur Blair, (born 1903 , Motihari, Bengal, India —died Jan. 21, 1950 , London, Eng.), British novelist, essayist, and critic. Instead of accepting a scholarship to a university, Orwell went to Burma to serve in the Indian Imperial Police (1922–27), an experience that changed him into a literary and political rebel. On returning to Europe, he lived in self-imposed poverty, gaining material for Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), and became a socialist. He went to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War and stayed to join the Republican militia. His war experiences, which gave him a lifelong dread of communism (he would later provide British intelligence services with lists of his fellow British communists), are recounted in Homage to Catalonia (1938). His novels typically portray a sensitive, conscientious, emotionally isolated individual at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment. His most famous works are the anti-Soviet satirical fable Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), a dystopic vision of totalitarianism whose influence was widely felt in the postwar decades. His literary essays are also admired." (Britannica)
George Orwell (1987). “The complete works of George Orwell: Animal farm