Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Monday, January 30, 2017

Nelson Mandela on Nonracialism

We have never accepted really multiracialism. … We are fighting for a society where people will cease thinking in terms of colour … It’s not a question of race; it’s a question of ideas.[1]




[1] Nelson Mandela, Conversations with Myself (Toronto: Doubleday, 2010), p. 118.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Gibbon (again) on Trump

In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by the strong illusions of enthusiasm and the mimic arts of imposture.[1]

   - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776



[1] Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed., Hans-Friedrich Mueller (New York: The Modern Library/Random House, 2003), p. 440.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Gregory of Tours comments:

A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad. The inhabitants of different countries keep quarrelling fiercely with each other and kings go on losing their temper in a most furious way.[1]

Gregory of Tours (c. AD 538-594), The History of the Franks

 



[1] Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, tr. Lewis Thorpe (Toronto: Penguin, 1974) p. 63.  Tours in writing in post-Roman Gaul.  These comments appear in his Preface.