Tao Te Ching

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Caesar and Christ

By Will Durant

A comprehensive cultural history telling the dramatic story of Rome’s rise and fall, from tiny town to vast empire, from its spreading of civilization to its crumbling collapse into barbarism and chaos. Never succumbing to dry and meaningless descriptions, Durant insightfully parallels ancient Roman experiences with modern challenges: corruptions of power, bank failures, pork-barrel politics, depressions, State Socialism, electoral fraud, labor unions, trade associations, pressure groups, and class struggle.

Quotes from Caesar and Christ

“Faustina whose pretty face has come down to us in many a sculptured portrait, may not have relished sharing bed and board with incarnate philosophy; she was a level creature, who longed for a gayer life than his [Marcus Aurelius’] sober nature could give her.”

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“Marcus was too good to be great enough to discipline him or renounce him [his son Commodus]; he kept on hoping that education and responsibility would sober him and make him grow into a king.”

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“Moral reform is the most difficult and delicate branch of statemenship; few rulers have dared to attempt it, most have left it to hypocrites and saints.”

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Themes: Leadership

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“Of Antoninus there is no history, for he had almost no faults and committed no crimes... He gave the Empire the most equitable—and not the least efficient—government it would ever have.”

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“Only supreme artists like Virgil or Horace can produce good verse to governmental specifications; greater men would refuse, lesser men are unable to comply.”

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“Ovid, the great romanticist of a classic age, used a simple vocabulary that made him a pleasure to read. He developed scenes vividly realized with insight and imagery, characters brought to life by touches of psychological subtlety, and phrases compact with experience or thought—all with an unfailing grace of speech and flowing ease of line... here is the treasury from which 100,000 poems, paintings, and statues have taken their themes.”

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“Plotinus—the culmination of this mystic theosophy—restored the repute of philosophy by living like a saint amid the luxuries of Rome... an idealist who graciously recognized the existence of matter... Plotinus is the last of the great pagan philosophers; and like Epictetus and Aurelius, he is a Christian without Christ.”

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“Protestantism was the triumph of Paul over Peter. Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.”

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Themes: Christianity

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“Stoicism— which had begun y preaching strength—was ending by preaching resignation. For 400 years Stoicism had been to the upper classes a substitute for religion; now the substitute was put aside... It had conquered philosophy; but already its temple precincts heard reverently the names of invading deities... the incredible victory of Christ.”

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“The essential cause of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars... it was an empty shell when Christianity arose and invasion came.”

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Themes: Failure

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Quotes about Caesar and Christ (1 quotes)

“I have just finished Caesar and Christ. What a book! It is not only the best thing you have ever done yourself; it is the best piece of historical synthesis ever done by an American. I can imagine no improvement in it. It is clearly and beautifully written, and it shows a hard common sense in every line. I have never read any book which left me better contented”

Henry Louis Mencken 1880 – 1956 CE
alt.right founding father

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