Monday, March 2, 2009

And so begins the Taylor Caldwell Quotes...

From "A Pillar of Iron" - An historical fiction work of Taylor Caldwell on the life of Marcus Tullius Cicero:

"I distrust uncontrolled and vehement emotion, which has its impulse not in reason but in malice and confusion, lord. If man is to rise above mere beasthood then he must obey just law, formulated by just men, and not random and expedient law which is the servant of tyrants. That law which appeals to the sentimentality, gross and unlearned, of the masses, or to their bellies, is no law at all. It is only the lust of the barbarian, the scream of the jungle. Such law leads us back to the wilderness of tooth and bloody claw, the service of mindless beasts. Unfortunately, too often, the wild law of savagery is used by unscrupulous men to advance their own interests, and they, too often, find it in the masses. These unscrupulous men discover, to their ruin, that they have seized a tiger by the tail."

"You will observe, lord (addressing Emporer Sulla) "that Cicero has no high regard for the noisy and noisome masses." He(Julius Caesar) spoke with affection.

Marcus cried, "We are not speaking of the same thing at all! The people have souls and minds! I ask that rulers appeal to these things, and not to base appetites!"

She has many actual quotes - but I just read this one, and after her 9 years of study before writing, I bet Cicero would approve.

No comments:

Post a Comment