But Coraggio – and think of A.D. 2850. Where will your Carlyles and Emersons be then? But Herodotus will still be read with delight. We must do our b… - Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

In every age everybody knows that up to his own time, progressive improvement has been taking place; nobody seems to reckon on any improvement in the next generation. We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point – that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. ... On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?

I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education.

Then none was for a party,
Then all were for the state;
Then the rich man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great;
Then lands were fairly portioned,
Then spoils were fairly sold;
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old. Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe;
And the Tribunes beard the high
and the fathers grind the low;
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold;
And men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.