Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Those who ignore history...

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. -- Cicero , 55 BC

ERRATUM: Cicero never said that. The quote is taken from a book of historical fiction, A Pillar of Iron, written by Taylor Caldwell, published in 1965

3 comments:

  1. This quote seems a bit apocryphal. What's the source?

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a Latin teacher, as much as I agree with that statement, Cicero never said that. The quote is taken from a book of historical fiction, A Pillar of Iron, written by Taylor Caldwell, published in 1965 (it seems like we Classicists see this quote come up every four years). Cicero himself never said this quote, and there is no evidence to support that Cicero himself agreed with this and would ever have said this.

    http://message.snopes.com/showpost.php?p=570302&postcount=6

    Maybe we need Taylor Caldwell to run for office...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Keith: Taylor Caldwell died in 1985 making her ineligible to run anywhere but Chicago.

    ReplyDelete