Laudator Temporis Acti

Therefore with respect to our reading the art of not reading is extremely important. It consists in our not picking up whatever happens to be occupying the greater public at any given time, such as for instance political or literary pamphlets, novels, poems and so on, which currently make a lot of noise and even reach several editions in the first and last years of their run. On the contrary, we should consider that whoever writes for fools always finds a large public, and we should devote the always precious and carefully measured time set aside for reading exclusively to the works of the great minds of all times and peoples, who tower over the rest of humanity, and who are distinguished as such by the voice of fame. Only they really shape and instruct us.

Of the inferior we can never read too little and the good never too often. Bad books are intellectual poison: they ruin the mind. In order to read the good it is a condition that we do not read the bad; for life is short, and our time and our powers are limited.

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Daher ist, in Hinsicht auf unsere Lektüre, die Kunst, nicht zu lesen, höchst wichtig. Sie besteht darin, dass man Das, was zu jeder Zeit so eben das größere Publikum beschäftigt, nicht deshalb auch in die Hand nehme, wie etwa politische oder kirchliche Pamphlete, Romane, Poesien u. dgl. m., die gerade eben Lärm machen, wohl gar zu mehreren Auflagen in ihrem ersten und letzten Lebensjahre anfangen: vielmehr denke man alsdann, daß wer für Narren schreibt allezeit ein großes Publikum findet, und wende die stets knapp gemessene, dem Lesen bestimmte Zeit ausschließlich den Werken der großen, die übrige Menschheit überragenden Geister aller Zeiten und Völker zu, welche die Stimme des Ruhmes als solche bezeichnet. Nur diese bilden und belehren wirklich.

Vom Schlechten kann man nie zu wenig und das Gute nie zu oft lesen: schlechte Bücher sind intellektuelles Gift, sie verderben den Geist. Um das Gute zu lesen, ist eine Bedingung, daß man das Schlechte nicht lese: denn das Leben ist kurz, Zeit und Kräfte beschränkt.

'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?'

'I have heard none.'

'Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they howl to be heard.'

'Most people do, I suppose.'

'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.'

'Do you mean the Marseilles people?'

'I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed. It couldn't exist without allonging and marshonging to something or other — victory or death, or blazes, or something.'

We know it: this licence we poets claim and in our turn we grant the like;
but not so far that savage should mate with tame,
or serpents couple with birds, lambs with tigers.

scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim;
sed non ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut
serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

unless you all write about portents and flying feathered snakes

nisi portenta anguisque volucris ac pinnatos scribitis

• Eugenics and Dysgenics
• Good Seed and Bad
• Breeding
• Eugenics
• Nothing in Common
• Mixed Marriages
• Of Good Stock
• Well Born

[W]hen they are wearied, the earth is their bed, such food as they can snatch amid toil satisfies them, their time for sleep is shorter than the night.

fatigatis humus cubile est, cibus, quem occupati rapiunt, satiat, tempora somni artiora quam noctis sunt.

[T]he making of a medieval manuscript was dirty, smelly, often boring and certainly back-breaking. It involved blood, urine, excrement and earwax. From the visceral process of preparing animal skin, to the wrist-straining tedium of endless writing, to the foul-smelling ingredients of illumination, to the finger-numbing effort of sewing tough parchment together — making a manuscript was an act of hard labour.

We have become largely an urban folk, but there lies, deep down in the hearts even of those who have toiled in our cities for two or three generations, an ineradicable love of country things and country beauty, as it may exist in them traditionally and subconsciously; and to them, as much as and even more than to ourselves, the country represents the eternal values and the eternal traditions from which we must never allow ourselves to be separated.

For wine is the most beneficial of beverages, the pleasantest of medicines, and the least cloying of appetizing things, provided that there is a happy combination of it with the occasion as well as with water.

καὶ γὰρ ποτῶν ὠφελιμώτατόν ἐστι καὶ φαρμάκων ἥδιστον καὶ ὄψων ἀσικχότατον, ἂν τύχῃ τῆς πρὸς τὸν καιρὸν εὐκρασίας μᾶλλον ἢ τῆς πρὸς τὸ ὕδωρ.

How this lonesome journey has taught me to love the class of men that is called the lower, which, however, in the eyes of God is certainly the highest! Here one finds all virtues united: self-restraint, contentment, straightforwardness, fidelity, joy over most humble possessions, innocence, patience...

Wie sehr ich wieder, auf diesem duncklen Zug, Liebe zu der Classe von Menschen gekriegt habe! die man die niedre nennt! die aber gewiss für Gott die höchste ist. Da sind doch alle Tugenden Beysammen, Beschräncktheit, Genügsamkeit, Grader Sinn, Treue, Freude über das leidlichste Gute, Harmlosigkeit, Dulden...