Saturday, July 31, 2004
The Good Old Days
Seneca, De Beneficiis 1.10.1:
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Our ancestors made this complaint, we make this complaint, our descendants will make this complaint: that morals have been overturned, that wickedness reigns, and that human affairs are going downhill and to hell in a handbasket. But things are standing in the same place and will continue to do so, just shifted a bit in one direction or the other, as waves which the approaching tide has carried further in or the receding tide has held back on the inner part of the shoreline.
hoc maiores questi sunt, hoc nos querimur, hoc posteri nostri querentur: eversos mores, regnare nequitiam, in deterius res humanas et omne nefas labi. at ista eodem stant loco stabuntque, paulum dumtaxat ultra aut citra mota, ut fluctus, quos aestus accedens longius extulit, recedens interiore litorum vestigio tenuit.
