«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A modern politician: ... He believes there is no way of thriving so easy and certain as to grow rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and sun,... For all the difficulty lies in being trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is as cheap as a paymaster's fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
Samuel Butler (poeta): Igual
Explorar las citas interesantes en igual..
«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A small poet: ... He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the difficulty... Where he thinks he may do it safely, he will confidently own other men's writing... For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did, for contraries are best set off with contraries...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A news-monger: Is a retailer of rumour that takes up upon trust and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable commodity that will not keep; for if it be not fresh it lies upon his hands and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie; and as a slight suit will last as well as a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and, if there be any difference, he loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A libeller: ... All his works treat but of two things, his own malice and another man's faults, both which he describes in very proper and pertinent language. He is not much concerned whether what he writes be true or false; that's nothing to his purpose, which aims only at filthy and bitter, and therefore his language is, like pictures of the devil, the fouler the better. He robs a man of his good name, not for any good it will do him (for he dares not own it), but merely, as a jackdaw steals money, for his pleasure... He deals with a man as the Spanish Inquisition does with heretics, clothes him in a coat painted with hellish shapes of fiends, and so shows him to the rabble to render him the more odious...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A lawyer: Is a retailer of justice that uses false lights, false weights, and false measures. He measures right and wrong by his retaining fee, and, like a French duellist, engages on that side that first bespeaks him, though it be against his own brother; not because it is right, but merely upon a punctilio of profit, which is better than honour to him, because riches will buy nobility, and nobility nothing, as having no intrinsic value... He believes it no fault in himself to err in judgment, because that part of the law belongs to the judge and not to him...».
Fuente: [Morley] (1891).
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)