Laudator Temporis Acti

F.F. Bruce (1910-1990), The Books and the Parchments, 4th ed. (Basingstoke: Pickering & Inglis, 1984), p. 27 (footnote omitted):

The inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Gebal, for example, is written in a language almost identical with Hebrew. Its translation runs: 'Ittobaal (Ethbaal), son of Ahiram, king of Gebal, made this coffin for Ahiram his father as an abode for ever. And if any king among kings or governor among governors pitches a camp against Gebal and uncovers this coffin, let the sceptre of his authority be broken and the throne of his kingdom be overthrown, but let peace rule over Gebal. Whoso effaces this writing, let his seed perish'.

The last sentence of this inscription would be a suitable curse to utter against those AI company executives who direct their employees to buy rare books, rip the bindings off, scan and then destroy the pages. See, e.g., Brittany Allen, "Now Amazon is destroying rare books to train its AI," Literary Hub.

Genesis 31.3 (KJV):

And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.

Id. 31.13:

Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.

Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.3.7-9 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):

It is because of this kinship with the flesh that those of us who incline toward it become like wolves, faithless and treacherous and hurtful, and others like lions, wild and savage and untamed; but most of us become foxes, that is to say, rascals of the animal kingdom. For what else is a slanderous and malicious man but a fox, or something even more rascally and degraded? Take heed, therefore, and beware that you become not one of these rascally creatures.

διὰ ταύτην τὴν συγγένειαν οἱ μὲν ἀποκλίναντες λύκοις ὅμοιοι γινόμεθα, ἄπιστοι καὶ ἐπίβουλοι καὶ βλαβεροί, οἱ δὲ λέουσιν, ἄγριοι καὶ θηριώδεις καὶ ἀνήμεροι, οἱ πλείους δ ̓ ἡμῶν ἀλώπεκες καὶ ὡς ἐν ζῴοις ἀτυχήματα. τί γάρ ἐστιν ἄλλο λοίδορος καὶ κακοήθης ἄνθρωπος ἢ ἀλώπηξ ἤ τι ἄλλο ἀτυχέστερον καὶ ταπεινότερον; ὁρᾶτε οὖν καὶ προσέχετε, μή τι τούτων ἀποβῆτε τῶν ἀτυχημάτων.

Edward Kennard Rand (1871-1945), The Building of Eternal Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943),p. 6:

Some will look back with amusement from our age of boundless terrestrial spaces and teeming populations at these operations of Lilliput, these miniature battles, like those of Virgil's bees. But if we focus our microscopes more sharply or, better, if we do not blur our mental vision by always seeing big, we shall find in the story of this tiny Achaean League principles that govern, or ought to govern, our own democracies. These principles are stated by Polybius.³ Freedom of speech is one; equality and humanity, the love of one's fellow beings, are the others. And what are these — παρρησία, ἰσότης, φιλανθρωπία — but the only temporarily abandoned motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité?

³ The Histories, with an English translation by W.R. Paton (Loeb Classical Library, 1922), II 38. 6-9.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), Odes 2.18 (tr. Malcolm Quainton and Elizabeth Vinestock):

My mind is thoroughly exhausted from too much study of Aratus' Phaenomena; it is time I had some fun, and went out into the fields to play. Good Heavens! Who would want to praise those who, glued to a book, never have any interest in living?

What use to us is studying, except to exhaust us? And to pile care upon care on to us, who will perhaps become, either this morning or this evening, the victim of black Orcus? Orcus who is so pitiless that he does not pardon anyone.

Corydon, go on ahead, find out where good wine is on sale; chill the bottle, look for a shady arbour where I can recline; don't buy me any meat, because, however tasty it may be, I hate meat in Summer.

Buy apricots, melons, artichokes, strawberries, and some cream — that's what I like in Summer, when, beside a stream, I eat to the sound of the water, stretched out on the bank, or in a lonely cave.

Now while I am hale and hearty I want to laugh without stopping, for fear that one of these days illness may say to me, 'I have defeated you now: die, my merry friend, you have lived too long.'

J'ay l'esprit tout ennuyé
D'avoir trop estudié
Les Phenomenes d'Arate:
Il est temps que je m'esbate
Et que j'aille aux champs jouer.        5
Bons dieux! qui voudroit louer
Ceux qui, collez sur un livre,
N'ont jamais soucy de vivre?

Que nous sert l'estudier,
Sinon de nous ennuyer?        10
Et soin dessus soin accroistre,
A nous qui serons peut-estre,
Ou ce matin, ou ce soir,
Victime de l'Orque noir,
De l'Orque qui ne pardonne,        15
Tant il est fier, à personne.

Corydon, marche devant;
Sçache où le bon vin se vend:
Fay refraischir la bouteille,
Cerche une ombrageuse treille        20
Pour souz elle me coucher.
Ne m'achete point de chair,
Car, tant soit elle friande,
L'Esté je hay la viande.

Achete des abricôs,        25
Des pompons, des artichôs,
Des fraises et de la crème:
C'est en Esté ce que j'aime,
Quand sur le bord d'un ruisseau
Je les mange au bruit de l'eau,        30
Estendu sur le rivage
Ou dans un antre sauvage.

Ores que je suis dispos,
Je veux boire sans repos,
De peur que la maladie        35
Un de ces jours ne me die,
Je t'ay maintenant veincu:
Meurs, galland, c'est trop vescu.

At lines 34 and 38 rire and assez beu are variants for boire and trop vescu.

Orosius, Against the Pagans 2.6.13 (tr. Roy J. Deferrari):

It is not necessary at this point to amplify the unstable conditions of changing events. For whatever is made by the hand and work of man collapses and is consumed by the passage of time, as the capture of Babylon confirms.

exaggerare hoc loco mutabilium rerum instabiles status non opus est: quidquid enim est opere et manu factum, labi et consumi vetustate, Babylon capta confirmat.

A.W. Pickard-Cambridge (1873-1952), Demosthenes and the Last Days of Greek Freedom, 384-322 B.C. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1914), p. 489:

The claim of Demosthenes to be ranked among the heroic men of the past rests above all on the constancy and sincerity with which he defended the noblest cause known to the Greeks — that of Hellenic liberty; and only those who have failed to recognise that most of what was best in the Greek, and, above all, in the Athenian character sprang from and was bound up with political liberty, can seriously censure his choice. If any cause was, to a Greek, worth fighting for to the death, that for which Demosthenes fought and died was pre-eminently so.

Lord Acton (1834-1902), Selected Writings, Vol. 3: Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), p. 620:

Resist your time — take a foothold outside it — see other times and ask yourself whether the time of our ancestors is fit for us.

E.J. Kenney, review of Rudolf Hanslik, ed., Sex. Propertii Elegiarum Libri IV (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1979), in Classical Review 31.2 (1981) 200-202 (at 202):

Hanslik follows a practice in which he is by no means alone, but to which vigorous objection should be made, of listing the names of scholars who have printed or approved this or that reading or conjecture. Even when this information is accurately and consistently conveyed — which all too frequently is not the case here — it is totally valueless.