{"id":330,"date":"2007-11-16T11:40:38","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T15:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=330"},"modified":"2007-11-16T11:40:38","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T15:40:38","slug":"aphorism-of-the-day-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Aphorism Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>A sure sign of a good book is that the older we grow the more we like it. A youth of 18 who wanted and above all <em>could<\/em> say what he felt would say of Tacitus something like the following: Tacitus is a difficult writer who knows how to depict character: and sometimes gives excellent descriptions, but he affects obscurity and often introduces into the narration of events remarks that are not very illuminating; you have to know a lot of Latin to understand him. At 25 perhaps, assuming he has in the interim done more than read, he will say: Tacitus is not the obscure writer I once took him for, but I have discovered that Latin is not the only thing you need to know to understand him &#8212; you have to bring a great deal with you yourself. And at 40, when he has come to know the world, he may perhaps say: Tacitus is one of the greatest writers who ever lived.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"right\">(Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, <em>Aphorisms<\/em>, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, E 43)<\/p>\n<p>Lichtenberg was still in his early thirties when he wrote this. I take it that the 18-year-old cannot always say what he thinks because he is still in school.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the German for those who can handle it:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Ein sicheres Zeichen von einem guten Buch ist, wenn es einem immer besser gef&auml;llt je &auml;lter man wird. Ein junger Mensch von 18, der sagen wollte, sagen d&uuml;rfte und vornehmlich sagen <em>k&ouml;nnte<\/em> was er empfindet, w&uuml;de von Tacitus etwa folgendes Urteil f&auml;llen: Tacitus ist ein schwerer Schriftsteller, der gute Charaktere zeichnet und vortrefflich zuweilen malt, allein er affektiert Dunkelheit und kommt oft mit Anmerkungen in die Erz&auml;hlung der Begebenheiten herein, die nicht viel erl&auml;utern, man mu&szlig; viel Latein wissen um ihn zu verstehn. Im 25<sup>ten<\/sup> vielleicht, vorausgesetzt, da&szlig; er mehr getan hat als gelesen, wird er sagen: Tacitus ist der dunkle Schriftsteller nicht f&uuml;r den ich ihn ehmals gehalten, ich finde aber, da&szlig; Latein nicht das einzige ist was man wissen mu&szlig; um ihn zu verstehen, man mu&szlig; sehr viel selbst mitbringen. Und im 40<sup>ten<\/sup>, wenn er die Welt hat kennen lernen, wird er vielleicht sagen, Tacitus ist einer der ersten Schriftsteller, die je gelebt haben.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"right\">(Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, <em>Sudelb&uuml;cher<\/em>, E 197 &#8212; 2nd half)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sure sign of a good book is that the older we grow the more we like it. A youth of 18 who wanted and above all could say what he felt would say of Tacitus something like the following: Tacitus is a difficult writer who knows how to depict character: and sometimes gives excellent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classics","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}