To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur?
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Sunday, November 05, 2017
Always a Child
Cicero, Orator 34.120 (tr. H.M. Hubbell):