"The Odyssey will tell you an awful lot about human nature and life"

There are some wonderful versions of both the Odyssey and the Iliad available for children (such as Rosemary Sutcliff's The Wanderings of Odysseus and Black Ships Before Troy). Lane Wallace recently had an article in the February 19, 2010 The Atlantic Monthly, Original Sin on Wall Street in which one of her interviewees made the point of the importance of a well rounded knowledge of the classics, including, Odysseus.

"I think a lot of [the financial crisis] could perhaps have been avoided if our business leaders had a broader vision," Bogle told me. "I'm skeptical about the narrowness of the business school curriculum. I happen to believe it should have a much greater liberal arts emphasis, and even a much greater emphasis on the classics. The Odyssey will tell you an awful lot about human nature and life, and therefore about business, and societal values. Read the Odyssey. Read Dante's Inferno. You can also learn a lot by reading Seneca's essay on the shortness of life or Montaigne's essay on vanity."