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Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Draconis - 04-11-2012
Couldn't think of where else to put this so here goes... The other day, as I am wont to do, I did a Google search to look up something of curiosity. In this case it was the late Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican Candidate for U.S. President in 1964. As a conservative Republican, Goldwater was painted as an extremist. Goldwater made a speech upon winning the Republican nomination in which he said " Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." This was refered as a paraphrase of Cicero, does anyone know the original Cicero quote?
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Robert Vermaat - 04-12-2012
It seems to origin in one of Cicero's oratios denouncing Lucius Sergius Catilina.
"I must remind you -- Lords, Senators --that extreme patriotism in defense of freedom is no crime, and let me respectfully remind you that pusillanimity in the pursuit of justice is no virtue in a Roman".
Searching further for the exact reference. Maybe it's a red herring though, or the wording was very different...
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Draconis - 04-12-2012
What an elegant way to tell them to grow a pair :-)
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Robert Vermaat - 04-12-2012
At the moment I'm not even sure that these words are correct. I've tracked down an editorian from the Chicago tribune, reprinted by the News and Courier on November 1, 1964 (discussing the Goldwater speech of course), in which a novelist by the name of miss Taylor Caldwell confesses that, even after years of study which included translations of the original latin documents in the Vatican archives, she can't confirm the Catiline orations as the source of the (in)famous sentence.
She points to a letter from Cicero to his son Marcus as well as in letters to his editor Atticus. The passage seems to be from Aristotle (Ethics), paraphrased by Cicero as:
"Virtue is rightly defined as a Mean, and insofar as it aims at the highest excellence it is an Extreme. Extremes of excellence in virtue and in patriottism should be honoured by all just men."
As we've seen earlier with that quote about wounded men in war, it seems that the 'original quote' was not correct. I'm still looking for it in the catiline orations though.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2506&dat=19641101&id=W3tJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fQsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=689,59231
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - M. Caecilius - 04-12-2012
Great finds, Robert. I've come across some discussion on a Classics board arguing for an outright invention by this miss T. Caldwell in Pillar of Iron.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.classics/55967
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.classics/46805/focus=46827
I've found other sites which put it in the Second Oration against Catiline, but I've reread it several times, checked the others, checked Sallust, B.Cat. and Plutarch, Cicero; Plutarch, Sayings of the Romans, and could not find anything. There's a few places in the Catilinarians (especially the Second as well as in the counter to Caesar's proposal of exiling the conspirators, and in Sallust's treatment of Cato's speech) which come close, but nowhere does this seem to be said as far as I can tell.
I'm still looking for the letter of Cicero to his son. I can't find anything like this in his ad familiares... does anyone have the reference? Or is this a secret letter in the Vatican? (Hurray for conspiracy theories).
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Robert Vermaat - 04-12-2012
I've now finished reading the first three orations, and if the wording is not completely different, it's not in there. This is a very good example of the spread of false information though.. :wink: I love it how that article opens with "what every schoolboy has learned".. not only pointing towards a bygone age in which schoolboys were taught a bit of the Classics, but also completely wrong information!
hock: Perhaps it's true what they say about a good quote - it's either stolen or fabricated! Or perhaps that a wrong quote as well.... :mrgreen:
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Robert Vermaat - 04-12-2012
Quote:Great finds, Robert. I've come across some discussion on a Classics board arguing for an outright invention by this miss T. Caldwell in Pillar of Iron.Very good discussions.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.classics/55967
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.classics/46805/focus=46827
Quote:I'm still looking for the letter of Cicero to his son. I can't find anything like this in his ad familiares...Perhaps they were mistaken because of the name, and the 'Marcus' in question refers to Cicero's brother Marcus. In that case it should be in the ad Quintum fratrem collection?
Epistulae ad familiares:
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&query=Cic.%20Fam.&getid=1
Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&query=Cic.%20Q.%20fr.&getid=1
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Draconis - 04-13-2012
Its such a good quote though and something he might have said. If it came originally from Aristotle, Cicero was certainly well aware of Aristotle's writings as a lover of Philosophy. Alas that politicians now don't have the eloquence of Cicero or even Goldwater. That and its a shame that people no longer throw classical allusions into everyday speech... It IS cool though, to " get it" when someone does. Ambrosia for the soul...
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Draconis - 04-13-2012
Might it be in one of his oher works?
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Sean Manning - 04-16-2012
Another quote which I suspect to be by a 20th century American but attributed to an ancient is "the nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." The words are sometimes slightly different and are always attributed to “Thucydides” but I don't remember reading it in Thucydides. The master liked pithy generalizations, but he wasn't worried about a divide between thinkers and fighters because in his day, well-off Greek men were expected to do both.
Yet I can even find this quoted on the website of the Landmark Thucydides!
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - M. Caecilius - 04-17-2012
Quote:Another quote which I suspect to be by a 20th century American but attributed to an ancient is "the nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." The words are sometimes slightly different and are always attributed to “Thucydides” but I don't remember reading it in Thucydides. The master liked pithy generalizations, but he wasn't worried about a divide between thinkers and fighters because in his day, well-off Greek men were expected to do both.
Seems to be attributed to Leonidas of Sparta or simply "a King of Sparta", too, usually with Thucydides as the source who wrote it down. The only place where I can think of that a distinction between scholars and warriors is made is Plato's Republic (ca 380 B.C.) which was never really put into practice, is too late for Thucydides (died around 395 BC), never mind Leonidas (died 480 B.C.) to have read it .
Though this is the quote as it usually appears, wouldn't it make more sense to say "has it's fighting done by cowards, and it's thinking done by fools" (assuming the philosopher caste ends up fighting, and the warrior caste ruling/thinking). It's getting late, so I seem to be missing some part of the Laconic wit. Can someone explain? Ta.
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - M. Caecilius - 04-17-2012
Quote:Might it be in one of his oher works?
I can't find it. Unfortunately, I am more and more convinced that it has been made up by Ms. Cadwell. I can't even find the statement in Aristotle... of course, all that means is that I can't find it, not that it's not there.
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Sean Manning - 04-17-2012
Quote:The closest thing I can think of is Thucydides’ funeral oration, where he has Pericles marvel that Athenians are both clever and brave, and can enjoy life without becoming soft. I am especially suspicious because as far as I can tell, nobody ever cites a source more specific than “Thucydides, History” or cites the Greek. If its from a published translation, the text should be online somewhere; if its from an unpublished translation, the translator should have quoted the Greek or the book, section, and chapter.Sean Manning post=311012 Wrote:Another quote which I suspect to be by a 20th century American but attributed to an ancient is "the nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." The words are sometimes slightly different and are always attributed to “Thucydides” but I don't remember reading it in Thucydides. The master liked pithy generalizations, but he wasn't worried about a divide between thinkers and fighters because in his day, well-off Greek men were expected to do both.
Seems to be attributed to Leonidas of Sparta or simply "a King of Sparta", too, usually with Thucydides as the source who wrote it down. The only place where I can think of that a distinction between scholars and warriors is made is Plato's Republic (ca 380 B.C.) which was never really put into practice, is too late for Thucydides (died around 395 BC), never mind Leonidas (died 480 B.C.) to have read it .
Though this is the quote as it usually appears, wouldn't it make more sense to say "has it's fighting done by cowards, and it's thinking done by fools" (assuming the philosopher caste ends up fighting, and the warrior caste ruling/thinking). It's getting late, so I seem to be missing some part of the Laconic wit. Can someone explain? Ta.
I think that the idea is that REAL MEN should be both warriors and philosophers. It seems to be linked to American nostalgia for conscription (even though the period of conscription from 1941 to 1973 was unusual in US history, and didn’t seem to make the US less belligerent or more equitable).
Quote:The fact that the quote is a translation makes things especially tricky. The irony is that I’m not sure who would want to be associated with Cicero’s murder of the accused Catalinarians. It seems rather like quoting Caesar on just war! The burden of proof is on the person making the claim "this quote is by X."Draconis ( Tom) post=310820 Wrote:Might it be in one of his oher works?
I can't find it. Unfortunately, I am more and more convinced that it has been made up by Ms. Cadwell. I can't even find the statement in Aristotle... of course, all that means is that I can't find it, not that it's not there.
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - M. Caecilius - 04-17-2012
Quote:The closest thing I can think of is Thucydides’ funeral oration, where he has Pericles marvel that Athenians are both clever and brave, and can enjoy life without becoming soft. I am especially suspicious because as far as I can tell, nobody ever cites a source more specific than “Thucydides, History” or cites the Greek. If its from a published translation, the text should be online somewhere; if its from an unpublished translation, the translator should have quoted the Greek or the book, section, and chapter.
Unfortunately, very few people quote this precisely. I've even come across academic works where the author wrote something like "Cicero wrote in his letters", "Livy said", or "According to Pliny the Elder", and leave their readers to chase the source. It's a bit of a pet gripe of mine, I admit - I spent hours at times to chase up a quote just to find that the original could be interpreted that way, but did not have to.
Quote: The irony is that I’m not sure who would want to be associated with Cicero’s murder of the accused Catalinarians.
Depends on whether you see it as murder or as a justified (though pretty clearly illegal) punishment. Both views were and are justifiable: it all depends on which general background you come from. Discussing this would probably open a can of worms given modern near-equivalents though. Cicero himself certainly bragged about his conduct, Cato was on his side, so were probably quite a few of the aristocracy, considering there was a vote on this in the Senate; Clodius and Piso (and the required amount of voters) got him exiled for this, Caesar and probably Crassus disagreed with Cicero.
Quote:The burden of proof is on the person making the claim "this quote is by X."
Indeed.
Unfortunately, these quotes simply breed. There's quite a few going around that were never said, or never said in the way they were quoted. Louis XIV never really said "L'état c'est moi"; there are a few quotes of Churchill known only in Germany because Nazi propaganda made them up ("Sport ist Mord" = "Sport is Murder" and "I don't believe any statistics I haven't forged myself"), many quotes are simply shortened so much and taken out of context so that they do not mean any longer what the originator wanted to say.
Unfortunately, something repeated often enough tends to be mistaken for the truth.
Re: Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote) - Draconis - 04-20-2012
I wonder what the ancients would have said about those who rewrite history to fit their agenda?