Laudator Temporis Acti

Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 668-671 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth):

Strangers, you have only to declare your need, for we have everything that suits this house: warm baths, beds to charm away fatigue, and the presence of honest faces.

ξένοι, λέγοιτ᾽ ἂν εἴ τι δεῖ· πάρεστι γὰρ
ὁποῖά περ δόμοισι τοῖσδ᾽ ἐπεικότα,
καὶ θερμὰ λουτρὰ καὶ πόνων θελκτηρία        670
στρωμνή, δικαίων τ᾽ ὀμμάτων παρουσία.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "To Be Filed for Reference," Plain Tales from the Hills (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920), pp. 338-350 (at 347):

As an Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his education about.

Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 147 (tr. Chris Carey):

So true is it, evidently, that a base nature, when given great indulgence, generates public disasters.

οὕτως ὡς ἔοικε πονηρὰ φύσις, μεγάλης ἐξουσίας ἐπιλαβομένη, δημοσίας ἀπεργάζεται συμφοράς.

μεγάλης ἐξουσίας ἐπιλαβομένη can also mean "having seized great power".

Alberto Manguel, quoted in Jorge Carrión, Against Amazon and Other Essays, tr. Peter Bush (Windsor, Biblioasis, 2020), p. 72:

It's true that bookshops have disappeared from many places. New York, which was a city of bookshops, has endured a genuine extinction, although a few survive as relics of bygone times. This has an impact on a city's intellectual life, on conversations, and changes the way one thinks. In Madrid, Buenos Aires, or Paris, you see people holding books. In New York, people are always holding their iPhone, and I find that disturbing. Not that I think that virtual reading is evil, but it is quite different. The equivalent of that intellectual desert in the world of transport would be Los Angeles, where one never walks, and goes everywhere by car: a city where one never walks is a city of ghosts.

Hat tip: My daughter, who gave me the book as a gift — she bought it in a bookshop, not on Amazon.

Lucien Febvre (1878-1956), The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais, tr. Beatrice Gottlieb (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 289:

For in the end—to get back to Rabelais—we have to reread the words after taking off our modern eyeglasses, the ones of today; we have to read them with the eyes of another time.

Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks 1 praef. (p. 33 Arndt; tr. Lewis Thorpe):

Before I do that, I apologize to my readers lest by syllable or even letter I offend against grammatical usage, a matter in which I am far from being expert.

sed prius veniam legentibus praecor, si aut in litteris aut in sillabis grammaticam artem excessero, de qua adplene non sum inbutus.

Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), Apoteosis de Santo Tomás de Aquino (Seville, Museo de Bellas Artes): Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Harvard Art Museums, inv. no. 1994.8 (1st-3rd century AD): British Museum, inv. no. 1772,0307.182 (7th century BC): British Museum, inv. no. 1824,0473.1 (1st-2nd century AD): All are bronze figurines.

Aristophanes, Wealth 802-818 (Cario, a slave, speaking; tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

Gentlemen, how nice it is to live happily, especially when there are no household expenses. A heap of goods has befallen our house, though we’ve done nothing bad! Yes, getting wealthy this way is mighty nice. Our grain tub’s filled with white barley, our casks with dark fragrant wine, and all our purses are full of gold and silver like you wouldn’t believe. Our well’s full of olive oil, our jars are brimming with perfume, and the attic with figs. Our saucers, dishes, and pots have turned to bronze, and those worn-out fish platters are silvery to behold. Our kitchen’s suddenly turned to ivory. We slaves pitch pennies with gold staters, and in our luxury we no longer use stones to wipe our bottoms, but cloves of garlic every time.

ὡς ἡδὺ πράττειν, ὦνδρές, ἐστ᾿ εὐδαιμόνως,
καὶ ταῦτα μηδὲν ἐξενεγκόντ᾿ οἴκοθεν.
ἡμῖν γὰρ ἀγαθῶν σωρὸς εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν
ἐπεισπέπαικεν οὐδὲν ἠδικηκόσιν.        805
οὕτω τὸ πλουτεῖν ἐστιν ἡδὺ πρᾶγμα δή.        805a
ἡ μὲν σιπύη μεστή ᾿στι λευκῶν ἀλφίτων,
οἱ δ᾿ ἀμφορῆς οἴνου μέλανος ἀνθοσμίου.
ἅπαντα δ᾿ ἡμῖν ἀργυρίου καὶ χρυσίου
τὰ σκευάρια πλήρη ᾿στίν, ὥστε θαυμάσαι.
τὸ φρέαρ δ᾿ ἐλαίου μεστόν· αἱ δὲ λήκυθοι        810
μύρου γέμουσι, τὸ δ᾿ ὑπερῷον ἰσχάδων.
ὀξὶς δὲ πᾶσα καὶ λοπάδιον καὶ χύτρα
χαλκῆ γέγονε· τοὺς δὲ πινακίσκους τοὺς σαπροὺς
τοὺς ἰχθυηροὺς ἀργυροῦς πάρεσθ᾿ ὁρᾶν.
ὁ δ᾿ ἱπνὸς γέγον᾿ ἡμῖν ἐξαπίνης ἐλεφάντινος.        815
στατῆρσι δ᾿ οἱ θεράποντες ἀρτιάζομεν
χρυσοῖς· ἀποψώμεσθα δ᾿ οὐ λίθοις ἔτι,
ἀλλὰ σκοροδίοις ὑπὸ τρυφῆς ἑκάστοτε.

See Brian A. Sparkes, "Aristophanes' Wealth 802–18," Mediterranean Archaeology 17 (2004) 231-236.

Cf. the slight euphemism in Benjamin Bickley Rogers' translation of the end of this passage:

And we the servants, play at odd-or-even
With golden staters; and to cleanse us, use
Not stones, but garlic-leaves, so nice we are.

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