Laudator Temporis Acti

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 22, § 260 (tr. E.F.J. Payne):

Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. When we read, we allow another to guide our thoughts in leading strings. Moreover, many books merely serve to show how many false paths there are and how seriously we could go astray if we allowed ourselves to be guided by them. But whoever is guided by genius, in other words thinks for himself; thinks freely and of his own accord and thinks correctly; he has the compass for finding the right way. We should, therefore, read only when the source of our own ideas dries up, which will be the case often enough even with the best minds. On the other hand, to scare away our own original and powerful ideas in order to take up a book, is a sin against the Holy Ghost. We then resemble the man who runs away from free nature in order to look at a herbarium, or to contemplate a beautiful landscape in a copper engraving.

Lesen ist ein bloßes Surrogat des eigenen Denkens. Man läßt dabei seine Gedanken von einem Andern am Gängelbande führen. Zudem taugen viele Bücher bloß, zu zeigen, wie viel Irrwege es giebt und wie arg man sich verlaufen könnte, wenn man von ihnen sich leiten ließe. Den aber der Genius leitet, d. h. der selbst denkt, freiwillig denkt, richtig denkt, der hat die Boussole, den rechten Weg zu finden. Lesen soll man also nur dann, wann die Quelle der eigenen Gedanken stockt; was auch beim besten Kopfe oft genug der Fall seyn wird. Hingegen die eigenen, urkräftigen Gedanken verscheuchen, um ein Buch zur Hand zu nehmen, ist Sünde wider den heiligen Geist. Man gleicht alsdann Dem, der aus der freien Natur flieht, um ein Herbarium zu besehn, oder um schöne Gegenden im Kupferstiche zu betrachten.

Id.:

The truth that has been merely learnt sticks to us like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a nose of wax, or at best like a rhinoplastic nose formed from someone else's flesh. On the other hand, the truth acquired through our own thinking is like the natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. On this rests the distinction between the thinker and the mere scholar. The intellectual gain of the man who thinks for himself is, therefore, like a beautiful painting that vividly stands out with correct light and shade, sustained tone, and perfect harmony of colours. The intellectual acquisition of the mere scholar, on the other hand, is like a large palette full of bright colours, systematically arranged perhaps, but without harmony, sequence, and significance.

Die bloß erlernte Wahrheit klebt uns nur an, wie ein angesetztes Glied, ein falscher Zahn, eine wächserne Nase, oder höchstens wie eine rhinoplastische aus fremdem Fleische; die durch eigenes Denken erworbene aber gleicht dem natürlichen Gliede: sie allein gehört uns wirklich an. Darauf beruht der Unterschied zwischen dem Denker und dem bloßen Gelehrten. Daher sieht der geistige Erwerb des Selbstdenkers aus, wie ein schönes Gemälde, das lebendig hervortritt, mit richtigem Lichte und Schatten, gehaltenem Ton, vollkommener Harmonie der Farben. Hingegen gleicht der geistige Erwerb des bloßen Gelehrten einer großen Palette, voll bunter Farben, allenfalls systematisch geordnet, aber ohne Harmonie, Zusammenhang und Bedeutung.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), "The Poet and the Cheese," A Shilling for My Thoughts, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1917), pp. 161-164 (at 162-164):

After a few sentences exchanged at long intervals in the manner of rustic courtesy, I inquired casually what was the name of the town. The old lady answered that its name was Stilton, and composedly continued her needlework. But I had paused with my mug in air, and was gazing at her with a suddenly arrested concern. 'I suppose,' I said 'that it has nothing to do with the cheese of that name.' 'Oh, yes,' she answered, with a staggering indifference, 'they used to make it here.'

I put down my mug with a gravity far greater than her own. 'But this place is a Shrine!' I said. 'Pilgrims should be pouring into it from wherever the English legend has endured alive. There ought to be a colossal statue in the market-place of the man who invented Stilton cheese. There ought to be another colossal statue of the first cow who provided the foundations of it. There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived. On the top of a neighbouring hill (if there are any neighbouring hills) there should be a huge model of a Stilton cheese, made of some rich green marble and engraven with some haughty motto: I suggest something like "Ver non semper viret; sed Stiltonia semper virescit."' The old lady said, 'Yes, sir,' and continued her domestic occupations.

After a strained and emotional silence, I said, 'If I take a meal here tonight can you give me any Stilton?'

'No, sir; I'm afraid we haven't got any Stilton,' said the immovable one, speaking as if it were something thousands of miles away.

'This is awful,' I said: for it seemed to me a strange allegory of England as she is now; this little town that had lost its glory; and forgotten, so to speak, the meaning of its own name. And I thought it yet more symbolic because from all that old and full and virile life, the great cheese was gone; and only the beer remained. And even that will be stolen by the Liberals or adulterated by the Conservatives. Politely disengaging myself, I made my way as quickly as possible to the nearest large, noisy, and nasty town in that neighbourhood, where I sought out the nearest vulgar, tawdry, and avaricious restaurant.

There (after trifling with beef, mutton, puddings, pies, and so on) I got a Stilton cheese. I was so much moved by my memories that I wrote a sonnet to the cheese. Some critical friends have hinted to me that my sonnet is not strictly new; that it contains 'echoes' (as they express it) of some other poem that they have read somewhere. Here, at least, are the lines I wrote:

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I—
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.

Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading Household Words,
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

As for the "echoes," see William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "London, 1802":

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

The Very Rev Toby Wright, Dean of Wells, in anticipation of the cider and cheese festival to be held at the Somerset cathedral (photograph by Russell Sach): Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Related post: What a Food We Have in Cheeses.

Plautus, Amphitruo 648-653 (Alcumena speaking, or rather singing; tr. Paul Nixon):

Courage is the very best gift of all; courage stands before everything, it does, it does! It is what maintains and preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.

virtus praemium est optumum;
virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto:
libertas salus vita res et parentes,        650
patria et prognati
tutantur, servantur:
virtus omnia in sese habet, omnia assunt
bona quem penest virtus.

David M. Christenson ad loc. (click to enlarge):

P. Cair. Masp. I 67097 v F, tr. Leslie S. B. MacCoull:

I want always to dance, I want always to play the lyre. I strike up my lyre to praise the solemn festival with my words. The Bacchae have cast a spell on me. . . . When I drink wine, my cares go to sleep. What do I care for pains and groans, what do I care for troubles? I love a young soldier, a Herakles with longing eyes, a lion tamer; ever one to save our cities.

ἀεὶ θέλω χορεύειν,
ἀεὶ θέλω λυρίζμιν.
γεραρὴν λόγοις ἑορτήν
ἀνα[βάϊλλομαι λυρίζειν.

θέλγουσίν με αἷ Βά<κ>χαι
α...υ[
[

ὅταν πίννω τὸν οἶνον,
εὕδουσιν αἵ μέριμναι·
τί μοι πόνων, τί μοι γόων,
τί μοι μέλει μεριμνῶν;

στρατηγὸν νέον ἔραμαι,
ποθοβλήτην Ἡρακλέα,
δαμάζοντα τοὺς λέοντας·
ἀεὶ τὰς πόλεις σαῶσαι.

I owe my knowledge of this poem to James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire (London: Profile Books, 2009), p. 23.

Related post: Let Us Be Merry.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "A Song to Mithras," Puck of Pook's Hill (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), pp. 193-194:

Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!
'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'
Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away,
Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat,
Our helmets scorch our foreheads; our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!

Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main,
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!

Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light,
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!

Joshua T. Katz, "Fit as a philologist," New Criterion (September 8, 2026):

A true philologist is what friends will call a careful reader and enemies a pedant: someone who uses deep and broad knowledge and minimal prejudice to try to understand, down to the nuts and bolts, the commas and the words in italics, what a document is trying to tell us.

A Doonesbury cartoon (December 19, 1981): A copy of this (with HERBERT changed to MIKE) used to hang in my corporate cubicle — in addition to degrees in Latin and Classics, I have a degree in Computer Science.

Cicero, On Friendship 7.23 (tr. William Armistead Falconer):

Wherefore friends, though absent, are at hand; though in need, yet abound; though weak, are strong; and—harder saying still—though dead, are yet alive; so great is the esteem on the part of their friends, the tender recollection and the deep longing that still attends them.

quocirca et absentes adsunt et egentes abundant et imbecilli valent et, quod difficilius dictu est, mortui vivunt; tantus eos honos, memoria, desiderium prosequitur amicorum.

James S. Reid ad loc.:

Xenophon, Anabasis, with an English Translation by Carleton L. Brownson (1922; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992 = Loeb Classical Library, 90), pp. 38-39 (1.4.6):

ἐντεῦθεν ἐξελαύνει διὰ Συρίας σταθμὸν ἕνα παρασάγγας πέντε εἰς Μυρίανδον, πόλιν οἰκουμένην ὑπὸ Φοινίκων ἐπὶ τῇ θαλάττῃ...

Thence Cyrus marched one stage, five parasangs, to Myriandus, a city on the sea coast, inhabited by Phoenicians...

Brownson didn't translate διὰ Συρίας. Neither did Robin Waterfield:

The next leg was a one-day march of five parasangs that brought him to Myriandus, a coastal city inhabited by Phoenicians.

Wayne Ambler's translation is correct:

From here Cyrus marched through Syria one stage, five parasangs, to Myriandus, a city inhabited by Phoenicians and on the sea.

I don't see any relevant variants in Wilhelm Gemoll's editio maior.

Labels: typographical and other errors

"Arthur Gibson, philosopher who rose from poverty to become the cleverest man in Britain," The Telegraph (18 Sept. 2026):

Professor Arthur Gibson, who has died aged 83, was a polymath widely recognised as one of the last century’s greatest minds and, measured by IQ, the cleverest man in Britain, despite growing up in poverty in Bradford and dropping out of school aged 14.

....

It was in this climate that Gibson stubbornly developed intellectual passions: for maths — despite his father stubbing out cigarettes on his hand when he got answers wrong — and for books, although he once received a Bible to the head after being caught reading it by his anti-literate father.

The dyslexic Gibson read everything he could — Bradford Library became a refuge — but he could not translate his instinctive passions into formal academic success. He left school at 14, with no O-levels and unable to recite the alphabet beyond the letter L.

....

His friend and fellow Cambridge mathematician Imre Leader recalled that: "If you quoted a passage from the Bible, Gibson could tell you exactly where it was from, and also which other verses shared the same words."

Hat tip: Eric Thomson, who also quotes Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), The Man of Genius (London: Walter Scott, 1891), p. 8:

Cranium and Brain.—Lesions of the head and brain are very frequent among men of genius. The celebrated Australian novelist, Marcus Clarke, when a child, received a blow from a horse’s hoof which crushed his skull. The same is told of Vico, Gratry, Clement VI., Malebranche, and Cornelius, hence called a Lapide. The last three are said to have acquired their genius as a result of the accident, having been unintelligent before..

Related posts:

• Bible Thumpers
• Samuel Johnson as Bible Thumper
• Gagged with the Gospel
• Books as Weapons

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 22, § 258 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway):

The difference between the effect that thinking for oneself has on the mind, versus that of reading is incredibly large, which is why it constantly magnifies the original difference between minds, by virtue of which we are driven to one or the other. Reading, that is, forces thoughts on the mind that are as foreign and heterogeneous to its momentary direction and mood as is the seal to the wax on which it presses its imprint. The mind here experiences a total external compulsion to think this or that at random, for which it simply has no inclinationb or mood. — On the other hand, with thinking for oneself it follows its own peculiar drive, as this for the moment was more specifically determined by either the external environment or some recollection. For the intuitive environment does not force one specific thought on the mind, like reading; instead, it provides the mind with material and occasion to think what is in accordance with its nature and present mood. — Now this is why much reading deprives the mind of all elasticity, like a continually pressing weight bearing down on a spring; and the surest way to have no thoughts of one's own is to immediately grab a book in every free moment. This practice is the reason why erudition makes most people even more stupid and simple than they already are by nature, and also deprives their writing of all success.

Die Verschiedenheit zwischen der Wirkung, welche das Selbstdenken, und der, welche das Lesen auf den Geist hat, ist unglaublich groß; daher sie die ursprüngliche Verschiedenheit der Köpfe, vermöge welcher man zum Einen, oder zum Andern getrieben wird, noch immerfort vergrößert. Das Lesen nämlich zwingt dem Geiste Gedanken auf, die der Richtung und Stimmung, welche er für den Augenblick hat, so fremd und heterogen sind, wie das Petschaft dem Lack, welchem es sein Siegel aufdrückt. Der Geist erleidet dabei totalen Zwang von außen, jetzt Dies, oder Jenes zu denken, wozu er so eben gar keinen Trieb, noch Stimmung hat. — Hingegen beim Selbstdenken folgt er seinem selbsteigenen Triebe, wie diesen für den Augenblick entweder die äußere Umgebung, oder irgend eine Erinnerung näher bestimmt hat. Die anschauliche Umgebung nämlich dringt dem Geiste nicht einen bestimmten Gedanken auf, wie das Lesen; sondern giebt ihm bloß Stoff und Anlaß zu denken was seiner Natur und gegenwärtigen Stimmung gemäß ist. Daher nun nimmt das viele Lesen dem Geiste alle Elasticität wie ein fortdauernd drückendes Gewicht sie einer Springfeder nimmt; und ist, um keine eigenen Gedanken zu haben, daß sicherste Mittel, daß man in jeder freien Minute sogleich ein Buch zur Hand nehme. Diese Praxis ist der Grund, warum die Gelehrsamkeit die meisten Menschen noch geistloser und einfältiger macht, als sie schon von Natur sind, und auch ihrer Schriftstellerei allen Erfolg benimmt.