The truth is all too often in difficulty, but is never extinguished, the saying goes, and the man who despises glory will have true glory. Let people call you cowardly rather than cautious, lethargic rather than judicious, spineless rather than a shrewd tactician. I prefer to have a discerning enemy fearing you than foolish compatriots praising you.
veritatem laborare nimis saepe aiunt, exstingui nunquam. gloriam qui spreverit, veram habebit. sine timidum pro cauto, tardum pro considerato, imbellem pro perito belli vocent. malo te sapiens hostis metuat quam stulti cives laudent.
"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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Friday, June 04, 2021
Contempt for Popular Opinion
Livy 22.39.19-20 (Quintus Fabius Maximus to Lucius Aemilius Paulus; tr. J.C. Yardley):