Friday, July 21, 2017

From Sir Thomas Browne

A signpost on the road to oblivion:

To be namelesse in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.

Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or, a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk. 1658. From the text in Selected Writings, ed. Sir Geoffrey Keynes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).
Related posts
Thomas Browne in The New York Times
Word of the day: quincunx

comments: 5

misterbagman said...

You know, a similar sentiment from a very different quadrant of culture popped up in my Quora feed today, and I thought you might appreciate the analysis.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-they-decide-to-kill-everyone-in-Rogue-One-1

It's always a pleasure to be illuminated by the glow of your interests, Professor.

Michael Leddy said...

That’s an unexpected and interesting connection. And now it makes me think of the end of Middlemarch: “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

misterbagman said...

The Middlemarch connection is made in the comments to the answer posted by Ben Skirvin - which was the specific answer I connected to your Thomas Browne post.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-they-decide-to-kill-everyone-in-Rogue-One-1/answer/Ben-Skirvin

I don't know whether you hold any love in your heart for Star Wars but I must say Rogue One does a lot to redeem the series from the (in my view deserved) slagging the other prequels have endured.

Michael Leddy said...

Huh — I must have zoomed right past it. (I had to look it up.) Star Wars has never been on my radar, but I know I’m an outlier.

Michael Leddy said...

Aha — I think a Quora account is required for reading the comments. No Middlemarch there that I can see.