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