Category: Lit & Crit

“The time of life is very short! To spend that shortness basely were too long, if life did ride upon a dial’s point, still ending at the arrival of an hour.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.2

“Treason is but trusted like the fox, who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d, and lock’d up, will have a wild trick of his ancestors.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.2

“Can honour set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word, honour? What is that honour? air. A trim reckoning!—Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1

“Thou owest God a death.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1

“Nothing can seem foul to those that win.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1

“Whatever the shortages of equipment that may have remained in the Pacific by the fall of 1944, none was so serious as the shortage of troop labor to perform the thousand and one tasks involved in the operation of a supply line in territory where facilities were primitive and native labor either nonexistent or totally unskilled. The shortage of service troops in the Pacific was a chronic condition—one that began with the arrival of the first American troops and endured until the end of the war. It was a contributing factor to practically every other problem of Pacific logistics. The shortage of port battalions contributed to every instance of ship congestion, the shortage of Quartermaster troops to every instance of spoiled rations, that of Engineer construction battalions to every instance of failure to build airfields, roads, and other facilities on time. The inadequate supply of service troops imposed far more severe limitations on the pace of the Pacific advance than did the supply of combat units. As General Somervell wrote from the South Pacific in September 1943, it was not ‘a case of “frills”—but one of getting beans, shoes and bullets to the men who are fighting and to save those fighting from being laid out with pestilence,’ of building facilities at primitive bases which the Japanese did not have the resources or ability to match. ‘It would be a great mistake,’ he said, not to supply service troops ‘in full measure and make the most of this advantage.’” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 2.4

“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work; but when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 1.2

“Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 1.2

“The first Engineer units sent out were too lightly equipped; they did not have either adequate quantities of equipment or heavy enough equipment for clearing jungles and building in jungle terrain. The initial conception, in fact, was apparently that much of the construction work in the Pacific would be pick and shovel work. It soon became clear that one of the principal points of American superiority over the enemy lay in heavy construction equipment—bulldozers, cranes, rollers, graders, crushers, drilling equipment, power shovels, power saw mills, and so forth—that could do the work of many men.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“A light wife doth make a heavy husband.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1

“The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark when neither is attended; and, I think, the nightingale, if she should sing by day, when every goose is cackling, would be thought no better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season’d are to their right praise and true perfection!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1

“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus: let no such man be trusted.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1

“He is well paid that is well satisfied.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1

“Multiple handling and transshipment at several points took their toll in breakage, deterioration, and pilferage. Storage north of Australia or New Caledonia was usually inadequate, and deterioration in open storage in a tropical climate appallingly swift. Rations spoiled, canvas rotted, ammunition became unusable, and machinery rusted. ‘There has been considerable wastage in all types of supplies . . . ,’ wrote Somervell from the South Pacific in September 1943. ‘This loss has been particularly high in ammunition and rations. No one really knows how much food has been spoiled. It is certain, however, that as much as 50 percent of some types of ammunition has gone to waste and hundreds of thousands if not millions of rations have been lost.’ In June 1943 an observer thought at least 40 percent of the rations in SWPA [Southwest Pacific Area] spoiled or unconsumable.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt but, being season’d with a gracious voice, obscures the show of evil? In religion, what damned error but some sober brow will bless it, and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 3.2

“Who shall go about to cozen fortune, and be honourable without the stamp of merit! Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity. O, that estates, degrees, and offices, were not deriv’d corruptly! and that clear honour were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover that stand bare! How many be commanded that command! How much low peasantry would then be glean’d from the true seed of honour! and how much honour pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times, to be new varnish’d!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.9

“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.6

“All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.6

“Fast bind, fast find—a proverb never stale in thrifty mind.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.5

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.2

“An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek—a goodly apple rotten at the heart.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.3

“I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2

“They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2

“There are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond, and do a wilful stillness entertain, with purpose to be dress’d in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; as who should say, I am Sir Oracle, and, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.1 (emphasis in original)

“Now, by two-headed Janus, nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: some that will ever more peep through their eyes, and laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper: and other of such vinegar aspéct, that they’ll not show their teeth in way of a smile.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.1

“Avoid all gentile books. For what need have you of alien writings, laws and false prophets which lead the frivolous away from the faith? What do you find lacking in God’s Law that you should seek those gentile fables? If you wish to read histories, you have the books of Kings; if rhetorical and poetic writings, you have the Prophets, you have Job, you have the Proverbs, wherein you will find a sagacity that is greater than that of all poetry and sophistry since those are the words of our Lord who alone is wise. If you have a desire for songs, you have the Psalms, if for ancient genealogies, you have Genesis; if for legal books and precepts, you have the Lord’s glorious Law. So avoid strenuously all alien and diabolical books.” – Apostolic Constitutions (as quoted by Cyril Mango in Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome)

“The archaeological exploration of the Limestone Massif in northern Syria, a region that attained great prosperity thanks to the cultivation of the olive tree, has shown not only the co-existence of large and small holdings, but also a general trend, in the period extending from the fourth to the sixth century [AD], towards the break-up of the bigger estates and the growth of villages composed of relatively well-to-do, independent farmers. While the conditions in the Limestone Massif were probably untypical of the rest of Syria, not to speak of other parts of the Empire, they serve to emphasize the danger of drawing general conclusions from literary and legislative texts.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome