Spring Cleaning: Quotations Written Down in 2018

I am clearing my desk, a little, and à la Marie Kondo, I am looking to see if my old bank statements 'spark joy.'

In the trains to and from work, I sometimes scribble down quotations. I'll share a few of last year's scribblings below, because they were amongst the papers on my desk.

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Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
p. 12

Great is the truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering what Mr Churchill calls an 'iron curtain' between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals.

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Andromaque
Racine
p. 39 (Bordas, 1979)
Act. I sc. i
Verses 121-122

Il peut, Seigneur, il peut, dans ce désordre extrême,
Épouser ce qu'il hait et punir ce qu'il aime.

(Rough translation: He may, Sire, he may, in this extreme disorder, espouse that which he hates and punish that which he loves.)

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Trumpian Fallacy:

Politik
Aristoteles, transl. Franz F. Schwarz
Stuttgart: Reclaim, 1989

p. 219

Doch man ist gewöhnt, die Verfassungen, die sich mehr zur Demokratie neigen, Politien zu nennen, aber die, die mehr zur Oligarchie neigen, Aristokratie, weil den Wohlhabenderen eher Bildung und edle Geburt folgen. Dazu aber scheinen die Wohlhabenden das schon zu besitzen, weswegen die Rechtsbrecher Unrecht tun. Daher bezeichnet man diese als ehrenwerte und anerkannte Leute.

(Rough translation: Yet one is used to call those constitutions, which incline toward democracy, polities; but those, which incline toward oligarchy, aristocracy; since education and noble birth are likelier to follow the wealthy. Moreover the wealthy seem to possess that already, for the sake of which lawbreakers do unjust things. Therefore one defines these as venerable and respected people.)

p. 220

Bei den meisten beinahe scheinen nämlich die Wohlhabenden den Platz der ehrenwerten Leuten einzunehmen.

(Rough translation: Almost for the majority of people, the wealthy seem to occupy the place of the venerable.)

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p. 456 (Footnotes)

Der hl. Thomas sagt zu Anfang von De ente et essentia: "parvus error in principio magnus est in fine."

(Rough translation: St. Thomas says at the beginning of De ente et essentia: 'a small error in the beginning is large in the end.')