Laudator Temporis Acti

To distribute equal shares to unequal sharers belongs to the greatest of injustices.

Τὸ νέµειν ἴσα τοῖς ἀνίσοις τῆς µεγίστης ἐστὶν ἀδικίας.

Like a bird that strays from its nest, is a man who strays from his home.

What is the nature of the wandering, whether of birds (cf. Isa 16:2) or humans? It hardly refers to occasional leaving and returning; rather it has to do with uprooting, moving away from one's origins and having no permanent dwelling. Sir 29:21-28 serves as appropriate comment on such a mode of existence. Our modern culture does not resonate in the same way to the realities assumed in the proverb, perhaps because movement and at least temporary settlement has simply become an accepted part of life. Some nations are highly conscious of their "turf," and this feeling appears to have been much stronger in Israelite life. It is also possible to interpret the wandering of the bird as a symbol of the fluctuations and inconsistencies in human existence.

"First it's one thing, then another," as the yokel said when he lost his spotted pig. What we haven't got today, we'll have tomorrow. That's the way life goes. Believe me, you couldn't name a better country, if it had the people. As things are, I admit, it's having a hard time, but it isn't the only place. We mustn't be soft. The sky don't get no nearer wherever you are. If you were somewhere else, you'd be talking about the pigs walking round ready-roasted back here.

'modo sic, modo sic' inquit rusticus; varium porcum perdiderat. quod hodie non est, cras erit: sic vita truditur. non mehercules patria melior dici potest, si homines haberet. sed laborat hoc tempore, nec haec sola. non debemus delicati esse, ubique medius caelus est. tu si aliubi fueris, dices hic porcos coctos ambulare.

In a word, the world itself is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of thieves, cheaters, etc., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, duram servientes servitutem [undergoing a hard bondage], and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moistness from water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger from a man.

Now I have need of juices by whose aid old age may be renewed
and may turn back to the bloom of youth and regain its early years.

nunc opus est sucis, per quos renovata senectus
in florem redeat primosque recolligat annos.

Beware
Those Who
Are ALWAYS
READING
BOOKS

New wine, new friend. When it grows old, you shall drink it with pleasure.

Οἶνος νέος φίλος νέος· ἐὰν δὲ παλαιωθῇ, µετ' εὐφροσύνης πίεσαι αὐτόν.

The thinking minds, the people of proper judgement and the people who are serious about things are all only exceptions; everywhere in the world the scum are the rule, and they are always at hand and busily at work to corrupt and 'unimprove' in their way anything said by thinkers after mature consideration. Therefore whoever wants to inform himself about a subject should beware of reaching for the latest books on it, in the assumption that the sciences always make progress and that during the writing of these new books older ones had been used. They probably have been, but the question is how. The writer often does not thoroughly understand the older writers, but does not want to simply use their text word for word and therefore transmogrifies and butchers what they said far better and more clearly, since they wrote from their own vivid knowledge of the subject. Often he omits the best they have produced, their most striking explanations of the subject, their most felicitous observations, because he does not recognize their values and he does not feel how pregnant they are. He finds only the shallow and insipid agreeable. — It has happened frequently that an older, exquisite book has been supplanted by newer, worse books written for money but pretentiously promoted and acclaimed by the authors' cronies.

Die denkenden Köpfe, die Menschen von richtigem Urtheil und die Leute, denen es Ernst mit der Sache ist, sind alle nur Ausnahmen; die Regel ist überall in der Welt das Geschmeiß: und dieses ist stets bei der Hand und emsig bemüht, das von jenen nach reiflicher Ueberlegung Gesagte auf seine Weise zu verschlimmbessern. Daher hüte sich wer über einen Gegenstand sich belehren will, sogleich nur nach den neuesten Büchern darüber zu greifen, in der Voraussetzung, daß die Wissenschaften immer fortschreiten, und daß bei Abfassung derselben die ältern benutzt worden seien. Das sind sie wohl; aber wie? Der Schreiber versteht oft die ältern nicht gründlich, will dabei doch nicht geradezu ihre Worte gebrauchen, verballhornt und verhunzt daher das von ihnen sehr viel besser und deutlicher Gesagte; da sie aus eigener und lebendiger Sachkenntniß geschrieben haben. Oft läßt er das Beste, was sie herausgebracht haben, ihre treffendesten Erklärungen der Sache, ihre glücklichsten Bemerkungen, wieder fallen; weil er deren Werth nicht erkennt, das Prägnante derselben nicht fühlt. Ihm ist nur das Platte und Seichte homogen. Schon oft ist ein älteres, vortreffliches Buch durch neuere, schlechtere, des Geldes wegen abgefaßte, aber pretentiös auftretende und durch die Kamaraden angepriesene verdrängt worden.

There are five ages of professors—tireless, tiring, tiresome, tired and retired...

Nothing is more wretched than a ruler who does not in any way benefit his subjects.

Ἄρχοντος µηδὲν τοὺς ἀρχοµένους ὠφελοῦντος οὐδὲν ἀθλιώτερον.