King Lear

Τὶ εἴη ἵππῳ, κυνί, ἀρουραίῳ ζωή, καί σοι οὔ πη ψυχή;

 

(Ti eíē híppō, kyní, arouraíō zōḗ, kaí soi oú pē psychḗ?)

 

Why should a horse, a dog, a rat have life, and thee no breath at all?

 

—Shakespeare, Λεῖρ Βασιλεύς  (King Lear)

Martyred on the Coast of Cornwall

Incursus apostolorum ex Hibernia videtur quidem fuisse impetum improvisum juventutis in mundum senescentem, atque etiam in Ecclesiam quæ senescere videbatur. Martyriti sunt nonnulli in litore Cornoviense, et auctor maximus de antiquitatibus Cornoviensibus mihi dixit se nullo modo credere eos martyritos esse a paganis, sed (ut jucunde ait) “a Christianis lentioribus”.

 

The rush of missionaries from Ireland, for instance, has all the air of an unexpected onslaught of young men on an old world, and even on a Church that showed signs of growing old. Some of them were martyred on the coast of Cornwall; and the chief authority on Cornish antiquities told me that he did not believe for a moment that they were martyred by heathens but (as he expressed it with some humour) “by rather slack Christians”.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Armies

In statibus variis civitatum, conscribuntur milites dissimillimis causis. Urgentur barbari amore pugnandi; admoneantur cives reipublicæ liberæ animā pietatis; in regno cives, at quidem nobiles, notione honoris animantur; sed incolas timidos atque delicatos imperii labentis necesse est ad militiam aut prolicere spe divitiarum aut compellere metu pœnæ.

 

In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.

 

—Edward Gibbon, De Lapsu et Ruina Imperii Romanorum (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

A witty saying

Χαριέντισμα οὐδὲν βεβαιοῖ.

 

(Chariéntisma ouden bebaioî.)

 

A witty saying proves nothing.

 

—Voltaire