“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
“If the Japanese were not, in the last analysis, such formidable opponents as the Germans, their preference for death to surrender, and the mere physical difficulties of mounting operations against their entrenched positions, combined to make them seem so.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“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
“When a human being was about to expire, a throng of demons would hasten to his deathbed in the expectation of gaining possession of his soul and would be opposed in so doing by the guardian angel. Once the soul had been parted from the body, it had to journey through the air and stop at a number of ‘customs posts’ or ‘toll houses’ (telônia) manned by demons who examined it on its deeds on earth and either let it proceed upon payment of the appropriate due, calculated in good works, or seized it there and then.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Demons were always ready to enter the bodies of humans and domesticated animals where, attracted by the warmth and moisture, they could dwell, like parasites, for long years. In doing so they caused various diseases and a derangement of the senses. Not all diseases, of course, were due to demons, and some would respond to medical treatment or curative waters; yet a great many were the result of possession and lay, therefore, beyond the physician’s competence. Only an exorcist could help, and his methods were rough. He would often strike the patient in the chest or throw him to the ground and step upon his neck. The demon, always unwilling to depart, could cause levitation; when forced out, he convulsed the patient, made him tear his clothes, and then left him unconscious. But the cure, once effected, was complete.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” – Tony Gilroy, “Rix Road,” Andor
“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)
“Higher education [in the Byzantine Empire] was dispensed by the rhetor or sophist and was available in the larger cities only. The rhetor/sophist, if he held an established chair, was appointed by the local council and received a salary as well as benefitting from certain exemptions. In practice he also received payments or gifts from his pupils. If, on the other hand, he was a free-lance (and many of them were), he depended entirely on fees. There was thus an in-built competition between teachers which occasionally erupted into fights and the kidnapping of students. Boys normally took up higher education at the age of fifteen and pursued it as long as long as their circumstances or their desires dictated: a complete course took about five years, but many left after two or three. Naturally, most of the students came from well-to-do families.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Walking a cat is less like walking a dog and more like walking a crime scene investigator.” – Katherine Catmull (@ Bluesky, December 3, 2024)
“May your friends always tell you to shut up when you need to shut up.” – Taylor Kay Phillips, “Dingus of the week: Thanksdingus,” Men Yell at Me, November 29, 2024
“If there was one institution that left an indelible mark on the Late Roman and Byzantine way of life, that was surely taxation. The imposition of regular and extraordinary levies—in kind upon the farmer and in money upon the merchant and artisan—was meant to be equitable; in fact, it hit the agricultural population harder than the urban, the poor much more than the rich.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome