To encourage the others

Ταύτῃ ἐν χώρῃ φρόνιμόν ἐστι ἀποκτείνειν ἐνίοτε ναύαρχον, ὅπως τοὺς ἄλλους θαρσύνῃ.

 

(Taútē en chṓrē phrónimón esti apokteínein eníote naúarchon, hópōs tous állous tharsýnē.)

 

In this country it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time, to encourage the others.

 

—Voltaire, Candide

St. Athanasius

Gloria est Sancti Athanasii quod se non tempori accomodavit; præmia est quod nunc manet cum illud tempus, more omnium temporum, decessit.

It is St. Athanasius’ glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.

 

—C. S. Lewis

Chariot racing

Quod interesset videri potest in ludis antiquitatis: amplissimi Græci histirones fuerunt, Romani soli spectatores. Olympiæ stadium apertus est divitiis, merito, æmulationi; et athletæ, dexteritate atque celeritate prodentibus, adsequi potuerunt Diomeden ac Menelaum, equosque aurigari veloce cursu… At Senator Romanus, ac etiam civis, dignitatis consciens suæ, rubesceret ostendere aut se aut equos suos in Circo Romano. Dabantur ludi impensa Reipublicæ, magistratuum, ac imperatorum; sed frena dirigebantur manibus servilibus, et, si merces celebrati aurigæ nonnumquam superabat patroni, hoc ascribendum est luxuriæ vulgi immodicisque mercedibus indecoræ artis.

 

A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid career… But a Roman Senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would have blushed to expose his person or his horses in the circus of Rome. The games were established at the expense of the republic, the magistrates, or the emperors; but the reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of a favourite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession.

 

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

Gladiator

“Opportet gentes cognoscere se victas.”

“Cognosceresne, Quinti? Cognoscerem?”

 

“People should know when they’re conquered.”

“Would you, Quintus? Would I?”

 

—Gladiator

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

The revolution

More Saturnino res novæ suos natos devorant.

 

After the example of Saturn, the revolution devours its own children.

 

—Jacques Mallet du Pan, French writer and journalist (1749-1800)

Industry

Vivebat Roma chirographis donec impenderet ruina. Sola vera fons divitiæ est industria, hujusque nullum fuit Romæ. Per singulos dies via Ostiensis plaustris et mulionibus complebatur, vehentibus in Urbem serica atque aromatica Orientalia, marmor ex Asiā Minore, lignum e Montibus Atlantibus, annonam Africanam atque Aegyptam; et vehebant plaustra ex Urbe nihil præter onera sterquilinii. Hoc fuit quod redderent.

 

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.

 

—Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man

Belisarius

“Ὑπὸ τοῖς θεοῖς παλαιοῖς,” ὁ μοῦ πρόσθεν δεσπότης ὁ Δαμοκλὴς ἔλεγε προσεπιρρητορεύων, “ἡ μὲν ἀρετὴ ἀεὶν ἐτίμα, ἡ δὲ ἁμαρτία ᾐσχύνετο· τοῦ κακούργου ὁ σταυρὸς οὐκ ἐνεχρυσοῦτο καὶ ἐποικίλλετο· οὐχ οἱ ἀνθρώποι ἐτέρποντο αἰσχυνθῆναι.” Ἀλλὰ πιστεύῃ ἕκαστος ὃ δοκεῖ. Καὶ εἰ τυγχάνει ἀτεχνῶς φιλεῖν τὴν εὐσεβείαν, μηδὲ εἶναι σοφιστὴς καὶ ἀγαθοφανὴς θεολόγος ἢ ἐγκρατευτὴς διεφθαργμένος, αὕτη ἡ ἱστορία οὐκ αὐτὸν λυπήσει, ἀλλ’ ἐναντίως θαρσυνεῖ αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς κανόσι. Ὁ γὰρ Κόμης Βελισάριος ἀτεχνῶς ἐφίλει τὴν εὐσεβείαν, καὶ μηδέποτε ἐπαύσατο. Οἰ ἐξ ὑμῖν νομίζοντες τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ἀληθὲς εἶναι λέγοισθε ὅτι Βελισάριος παρέσχε ἑαυτὸν ἐν τῇ δίκῃ παρὰ τὸν Ἰουστινιανὸν ἐν τρόπῳ τοῦ Δεσπότου παρὰ Πόντιον Πιλᾶτον, τὸν Ὕπαρχον τῆς Ἰουδαίας, ἀδικῶς κατηγορεύθεντος τῆς ὁμοίης κακουργίας, τῆς προδοσίας ἐπὶ τὴν Βασιλείαν· καὶ ὅτι ἐκεῖνος οὐ μεῖον ταπεινῶς ἔπαθε.

   Ἐξαρκεῖ οὖν περὶ ταῦτα.

 

(“Hypo toîs theoîs palaioîs,” ho moû prósthen despótēs ho Damoklēs élege prosepirrētoreúōn, “hē men aretē aein etíma, hē de hamartía ēschýneto; toû kakoúrgou ho stauros ouk enekrysoûto kai epoikílleto; ouch hoi anthrṓpoi etérponto aischynthêntai.” Alla pisteúē hékastos ho dokeî. Kai ei tynchánei atechnôs phileîn tēn eusebeían, mēde eînai sophistēs kai agathophanēs theológos ē enkrateutēs diephthargménos, haútē hē historía ouk auton lypḗsei, all’ enantíōs tharsyneî auton en toîs kanósi. Ho gar Kómēs Belisários atechnôs ephílei tēn eusebeían, kai mēdépote epaúsato. Hoi ex hӯmîn nomízontes to Euangélion alēthes eînai légoisthe hóti Belisários parésche heauton en tê díkē para ton Ioustinianon en trópō toû Despótou para Póntion Pilâton, ton Hýparchon tês Ioudaías, adikôs katēgoreúthentos tês homoíēs kakourgías, tês prodosías epi tēn Basileían; kai hóti ekeînos ou meîon tapeinôs épathe.

   Exarkeî oûn peri taûta.)

 

“Under the old gods,” my former master Damocles used to say, somewhat exaggerating the case, “virtue was always honoured, ignominy frowned upon; the felon’s cross was not gilded and jewelled; man did not revel in self-abasement.” But let everyone believe what he pleases. And if he happens to be a simple devotee of virtue, not a logic-chopping, hypocritical theologian or perverted ascetic, this story will not offend him, but contrariwise confirm him in his principles. For Count Belisarius had such a simple devotion to virtue, from which he never declined. Those of you for whom the Gospel story carries historical weight may perhaps say that Belisarius behaved at his trial before Justinian very much as his Master had done before Pontius Pilate, the Governor of Judaea, when unjustly accused of the very same crime, namely treason against the Empire; and that he suffered no less patiently.

   So much, then, for these things.

 

—Robert Graves, Ὁ Κόμης Βελισάριος  (Count Belisarius)

Tyrannies

 

Ἐκ τῶν πασῶν τῶν δεσποτείων, δεσποτεία ἕνεκα τῶν πασχόντων ἀπλῶς διοκουμένη βαρυτάτη εἴη. Ἀμείνων εἴη ἀρχιλῃστῶν ἀρχόντων βιοῦν ἢ παγκρατῶν σωφρονιστικῶν. Ἡ μὲν τοῦ ἀρχιλῃστοῦ ὠμότης ἐνίοτε καθεύδῃ, ἡ δὲ φιλοχρηματία ἔσθ’ ὅτε κορέστος· ἀλλ’ οἱ ἡμῶν ἕνεκα αἰκιζομένοι ἡμᾶς αἰκίσονται ἐκτὸς τῷ παύεσθαι, αἰκίζονται γὰρ εὐσυνειδήτοι.

 

Ek tôn pasôn tôn despoteíōn, despoteía héneka tôn paschóntōn aplôs diokouménē barytátē eíē. Ameínōn eíē archilēstôn archóntōn bioûn ē pankratôn sōphronistikôn. Hē men toû archilēstoû ōmótēs eníote katheúdē, hē de philochrēmatía ésth’ hóte koréstos; all’ hoi hēmôn héneka aikizoménoi hēmâs aikísontai ektos tô paúesthai, aikízontai gar eusyneidḗtoi.

 

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

 

—C. S. Lewis

Innovation

 

Studium innovandi vulgo procedit ex ingenio se amante et sententiis angustis. Non prospicient ad posteriores, qui numquam respiciunt ad majores.

 

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

 

—Edmund Burke

Power

Ῥέπει ἡ ἄρχη διαφθείρειν, καὶ ἄρχη ἀνέδην διαφθείρει ἀνέδην. Οἱ ἀνθρώποι μεγάλοι σχεδὸν ἀεί εἰσιν ἀνθρώποι κακοί, καὶ οἱ ἔχοντες τὴν ῥοπὴν μηδὲ τὴν ἐξουσίαν· μᾶλιστα εἰ ἐπιποιεῖται τὸ φυσίωμα ἣ παγιότης τῆς δεσποτείᾱς εἰς τὸ διαφθείρειν. Οὔκ ἐστι αἵρεσις κακī́ων ἢ ὅτι ἡ ἀρχὴ τὸν ἄρχοντα ἁγνίζει.

 

(Rhépei hē árchē diaphtheírein, kai árchē anédēn diaphtheírei anédēn. Hoi anthrṓpoi megáloi schedon aeí eisin anthrṓpoi kakoí, kai hoi échontes tēn rhopēn mēde tēn exousían; mâlista ei epipoieîtai to physíōma hē pagiótēs tēs despoteíās eis to diaphtheírein. Oúk esti haíresis kakī́ōn ē hóti hē archē ton árchonta hagnízei.)

 

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

 

—Lord Acton

A good cause

It is better to be forcibly oppressed in a good cause than to yield to a bad one.

 

Vi opprimi in bonā causā est melius quam malæ cedere.

 

—Cicero

Roman democracy

Ipsam propter democratiam Romanam nos tantum de oligarchia audimus. Exempli gratia, historici recentes conati sunt valorem atque victoriam Romanam attribuere illæ odiosæ atque oditæ usuriæ, quam fecerunt nonulli patricii, quasi Curius phalangites Macedonicos vicit pecuniam fænerando, ac Nero consul victoriam Metauri pro vicensima pactus. Sed usuriam sentimus patriciam e turbulentia plebiana. Regnum principum mercatorum Punicorum summa fuit usuriæ, sed numquam fuit turba Punica quæ audebat usurarios appellare.

 

It is precisely because of the presence of Roman democracy that we hear so much about Roman oligarchy. For instance, recent historians have tried to explain the valor and victory of Rome in terms of that detestable and detested usury which was practiced by some of the Patricians; as if Curius had conquered the men of the Macedonian phalanx by lending them money; or the Consul Nero had negotiated the victory of Metaurus at five per cent. But we realize the usury of the Patricians because of the perpetual revolt of the Plebeians. The rule of the Punic merchant princes had the very soul of usury. But there was never a Punic mob that dared to call them usurers.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, De Viro Sempiterno

War

Οὖν δὴ πόλεμος.

 

(Oûn dē pólemos.)

 

It’s war, then.

 

—Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece, when the Italian ambassador demanded that Greece submit to Italian occupation during the Second  World War

Send a second

Nisi tu desinas sicarios mittere, unum mittam ad Moscovam. Non opus erit mittendo secundum.

 

If you don’t stop sending killers, I will send one to Moscow. And I won’t have to send a second.

 

—Josip Broz Tito, President of Albania, in response to Stalin’s repeated attempts to assassinate him

The Duke of Wellington

Semper eramus, sumus, et, ut spero, semper erimus, osi apud Francos.

 

We always have been, we are, and, I hope, we always shall be, hated in France.

 

—Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

Lovers

Opportet nos medicari amantes pro insanis?

 

Should one use the same remedies for lovers as are used for the insane?

 

—Carolus Lormæus (Charles de Lorme)

The gods of the hearth

Re vera, solis illis, qui focum sacrum esse habent, umquam erit regula vel norma quibus respublica frenetur. Soli illi possunt aliquos provocare sanctiores dis urbanis, deos foci. Quare mirantur homines videre illas nationes, quæ severæ putantur in rebus domesticis, simul indomitas putari in rebus publicis, exemplo Hiberni ac Franci.

 

The truth is that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the state. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city; the gods of the hearth. That is why men are mystified in seeing that the same nations that are thought rigid in domesticity are also thought restless in politics; for instance the Irish and the French.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, De Viro Sempiterno (The Everlasting Man)

 

Bad writers

Οἱ κακῶς γράφοντες, μάλιστα περὶ τὴν ἐπιστήμην, τὴν πολιτικήν, καὶ τοὺς ἔθνους, σχεδὸν πάντες διώκονται τῇ δόξῃ τοὺς λόγους Ῥωμαίους καὶ Ἑλληνίκους μεγαλοπρεπεστέρους εἶναι ἢ τοὺς Σάξονας, καὶ περισσοὶ λόγοι, αὐτίκα expedire, admeliorare, prædicere, extraneus, deradicinus, clandestinus, subaqueus, καὶ ἑκατοντάδες ἄλλοι ἐνδελεχῶς ἀπωθοῦσιν ἑαυτοὺς τοὺς ἀντιστρόφους Ἀγγλοσάχονας.

 

(Hoi kakôs gráphontes, málista peri tēn epistḗmēn, tēn politikḗn, kai tous éthnous, schedon pántes diṓkontai tê dóxē tous lógous Rhōmaíous kai Hellēníkous megaloprepestérous eînai ē tous Sáxonas, kai perissoi lógoi, autíka expedire, admeliorare, praedicere, extraneus, deradicinus, clandestinus, subaqueus, kai hekatontádes álloi endelechôs apōthoûsin heautous tous antistróphous Anglosáxonas.)

 

Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers.

 

—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Entitlements

Ὑπερφύως νοοῦσιν οἱ ἀνθρώποι περὶ τὰς γερηφορίας ἄνευ τῶν δέων, διότι οὔκ ἐστι γερηφορία ἐκτὸς δέοντος διαπραχθέντος.

 

(Hyperphýōs noöûsin hoi anthrṓpoi peri tas gerēphorías áneu tôn déōn, dióti oúk esti gerēphoría ektos déontos diaprachthéntos.)

 

People have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation.

 

—Margaret Thatcher

Oedipus

Genius

Sed magnum ingenium quocumque existat, etiam in ordine regente.

 

But genius can turn up anywhere, even in a governing class.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, De Viro Sempiterno (The Everlasting Man)

Stupidity, pt. 2

Solæ duæ res sunt infinitæ, universum et stultitia hominum, nec certe scio de universo.

 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not so sure about the universe.

 

—Albertus Unilapis (Albert Einstein)

 

Stupidity, pt. 1

Contra stultitiam ipsi dei vane contendunt.

 

Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.

 

—Fridericus Scillerus (Friedrich Schiller)

Winter is coming

We the people

Ἡμεῖς ὁ Δῆμος τῶν Πολῑτειῶν Συνεστώτων, ὡς ποιῆται σύνστατις τελεότερα, κείηται ἡ δικαιοσύνη, φυλάσσηται ἡ ἡσυχία οἰκεῖα, προσκοπῆται ἡ σωτηρία εἰς τὸ κοινόν, ἐπισπεύδηται ἡ εὐτυχία δημόσια, καὶ λαμβάνωνται τὰ ἀγαθὰ τῆς ἐλευθερίης ἕνεκα καὶ ἡμῶν καὶ ἡμετέρου τοῦ ἔπειτα, νῦν καθίσταμεν καὶ τίθημεν ταύτην τὴν Καταστᾶσιν πρὸ τῶν Πολῑτειῶν Συνεστώτων Ἀμερικάνων.

 

(Hēmeîs ho Dêmos tôn Polīteiôn Synestṓtōn, hōs poiêtai sýnstasis teleótera, keíētai hē dikaiosýnē, phylássētai hē hēsychía oikeîa, proskopêtai hē sōtēría eis to koinón, epispeúdētai hē eutychía dēmósia, kai lambánōntai ta agatha tês eleutheríēs héneka kai hēmôn kai hēmetérou toû épeita, nŷn kathístamen kai títhēmen taútēn tēn Katastâsin pro tôn Polīteiôn Synestaménōn Amerikánōn.)

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

—Preamble to the U. S. Constitution