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...courses and qualifications [Thomas Coryat] In Renaissance Europe, Jews were seen as a threat to Christianity. Jews had been evicted from England in the 1290s, and were forced out of many other European states in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In those few places where they were tolerated, such as Venice, it was under sufferance, and only because they were useful....

...accordance with nature were taken up by later philosophers, especially the Stoics. Many of their concerns -- free speech, personal liberty, cosmopolitanism -- are still pressing issues today. And, of course, the Cynics have given a word to the English language, one that reflects their growling impatience with the rest of humanity, but not their dogged pursuit of virtue....