Know thyself know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions." In 1734 Alexander Pope wrote a poem entitled "An Essay on Man, Epistle II", which begins "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man." In 1735 Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of "Systema Naturae" in which he described humans ("Homo") with the simple phrase ""Nosce te ipsum"". In 1750 Benjamin Franklin, in his "Poor Richard's Almanack", observed the great difficulty of knowing one's self, with: "There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know
Te Deum (Pärt) functions as a drone throughout the piece, fulfilling "a function comparable to that of the ison in Byzantine church music, a repeated note which does not change pitch." On an ECM records leaflet, Pärt wrote that the Te Deum text has "immutable truths", reminding him of the "immeasurable serenity imparted by a mountain panorama." His composition sought to communicate a mood "that could be infinite in time—out of the flow of infinity. I had to draw this music gently out of silence and emptiness." (Hillier 140) The Latin text of the Te Deum is made up of 29 lines of