Thursday, January 1, 2009

Can you guess who said this?

"Gaius Gracchus proposed a grain law. The people were delighted with it because it provided an abundance of food without work. The good men, however, fought against it because they thought the masses would be attracted away from hard work and toward idleness, and they saw the state treasury would be exhausted."

Cicero - 55 BC

Later Taylor Caldwell in "A Pillar Of Iron" (1965) wrote this attributing it to Cicero:

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. The mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence. "

Either way, I think we can agree that they are laudable words.

3 comments:

HermitJim said...

They both make perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, getting people to depend on the fruit of their own labors is a hard taught lesson.

Good post!

Catman said...

Well, something tells me they're gonna get a lesson in the school of hard knocks pretty soon, Jim.

Catman said...

Oh, and thanks for the compliment!