The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
--
Review and ConclusionThomas Hobbes
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If a person would understand either the Odyssey or any other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.
Samuel (novelist Butler
It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. ... Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends...
J. R. R. Tolkien
The living will envy the dead.
Nikita Khrushchev
I think it a greater theft to Rob the dead of their Praise, then the Living of their Money.
Edward Ravenscroft
The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part. The copyright system was created expressly for the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was invented--books, which could be copied economically only on a printing press--it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals who read the books.
Richard M. Stallman
Hobbes, Thomas
Hobsbawm, Eric
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