Jacek Bocheński > Quotes

“The system created by him is perfect precisely because it does not try to be perfect and does not go to the extreme in any area but leaves itself some slack. The ideal cannot be reached, and any attempt to reach it is a guarantee of defeat.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“A legal requirement closes the case and obliges us to take the next step. The day after such a legal act, people will feel obliged to come up with a new title because only informal titles really count. In this system, each ruler is a runner heading to a moving finish line which keeps receding as fast as he runs. This is the law of politics, and Augustus knows it, so, for example, he does not resort to terror. The people say it’s from the goodness of his heart. In fact, it’s due to careful calculation. Whoever cuts off the first head will soon have to cut off too many of them.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“He started from the beginning of the world, from the physics of chaos and the first transformations of matter. He dodged the riddle of how the gods arose and assumed the eternal existence of the Organizer of Matter—matter, which has always existed, too, but was at first disorganized, formless, and unspecific. Only this Divine Organizer with an unknown name drew the individual substances out of the chaos and made them into things with more pronounced properties, that is, the animate and the inanimate nature. Maybe he created us as well? We don’t know where we came from. But if we had been molded by Prometheus, we were created from matter, too. Since our inception, a new process has begun, a new flow of changes in nature. From then on, human time has been the most important measure and source of non-objective time because now consciousness has come into the world. And more: ambition; the will to power. Values rose—good and evil; and the constant confrontation between man and gods.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“The mythological history of the world was mainly that of human misery resulting from the offended ambitions of the gods.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“Moreover, it must be understood that poetry does not bear witness to the real world. Poetry must not be treated like that. Nec tamen ut testes mos est audire poetas... If what poetry says were taken literally, as a testimony to the world, then there would be Cerberus with three heads and a fur of snakes, Perseus would have winged legs, and Scylla would have dogs in her crotch, and poetry would be responsible for any and all atrocities and immoral acts. This is downright nonsensical. Poetic imagination knows no bounds, its creations are free and cannot be placed in any reality, and poets are not to be judged by their historical truthfulness.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“Are you supposed to lie? No worries . Jupiter accepts these things with good humor. As for gods, it would be beneficial to us should they exist, so let us believe they do. The general principles of morality must be followed: pay your debts, do not cheat, do not kill. Girls, on the other hand, you can deceive with impunity because the gods do it themselves, and there is nothing more just than punishing the wrongdoer with his own medicine.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“The Senate was speechless at first, then asked that this unheard-of abdication be rescinded, and awarded the Divine the title of Augustus, and finally named the eighth month in his honor—“ August.” The abdication turned out to be practically irrelevant. The Divine retained all powers, but the step was of moral significance because suddenly, political power lost the aspect of terror, and people were free to delude themselves that it endured thanks to their permission.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“did not know it, and neither did people with philosophical education, who thought that politics should be a moral choice when , in fact, it is a choice of means.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“The arrival of a new lover often destroys the previous love. Don’t break up abruptly. Pretend that everything is fine, be calm, smile, do not despair, do not complain, do not harass her, do not wait in front of her door, and never lie in the street, even by accident! Destroy the letters and images of the loved one. But do not hate her! Hate is really another guise of love, and only when you are able to give an honest hug to your former rival will you have been healed. The rest are trifles.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“How much more enlightened is a man who welcomes lovers or even invites them to cheat. There is no recommendation more important than this in my entire treatise on the craft of love. Perhaps I will just add that in such cases, it is best not to know anything and not to say anything. Today, however, there is a widespread fashion of speaking openly about everything and bragging about imaginary excesses when there are none. So you should remain silent.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“stick your head out of the litter— please cut it off— oh, I understand that, that was courage. I respected Cicero, they cut off his head indeed, but today , when I removed all terror, they write lampoons and practice demagoguery under the protection of the law. What sort of courage is this?”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“none of us personally lives in the past, that is, in what was. It is only possible to understand the past (in which we are not) here and now (in which we are). And this understanding can only be expressed in the style and words given to us by our present. And thus, when I say “was,” that “was” has no perceptible existence. “Was” exists only insofar as I say it, and as a result of my saying it, this “was” suddenly appears to us here and now as “is.” Hence this important conclusion: there is no real difference between the past and the present. Ancient history is with us today.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“In general , love is a small dose of delight wrapped up in a lot of torment.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“After all, Ovid was never haunted by the skeptical suspicion that history might have two contradictory courses, one appointed by the ruling god, the other by man’s antlike resistance, and that the writer, if he is a spokesman for history, must choose between these two orders. Ovid succumbed to the third order, which was unhistorical, abstract, and determined only by the logic of composition and rhythm. It was this order alone that guided his work. And it had something mathematical about it, even if it did not lack the charms of dancing.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“In love, oaths are the sins of a pure heart and are dust in the wind. Let them be blown away by the grace of Venus.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“There is no way to cure the despicable selfishness of bullies, the vanity of these little people: they have to show off in front of an audience.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“And please: national morals are in the gutter, young people do scandalous things, wives cheat on their husbands, there is a fashion for childlessness, Rome is wicked, this is the harvest of the poison sowed by your poetry. This is the result.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“Something like this did indeed happen. Certainly, Ovid was not a lover of simplicity, coarse ways of thinking, moral prejudices, god-fearing peasant life, hands ennobled by the handling of the plow and always ready to draw a sword in need. He hated all this ancient Roman stuff with its overrated virtues, constantly shoved down the young generations’throats. He loved the urban civilization: like Messalla, that aristocrat by birth but radical by conviction. He loved the independence of thought and secularism of manners. With time, he did notice that this urban civilization, though still so very young, was already giving birth to something he hated even more, namely self-interested ways of thinking, a tendency to live like a merchant, a calculating contempt for everything that could not be exchanged for money or some other material possession. I cannot wear your poetry, Corinna once said. What a strange certainty that poetry has no value because it is intangible!”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“Life is a common good, it inheres in man and beast and passes from one to another, from body to body, this is how souls travel. In nature, everything is constantly changing, nothing is lost. The soul, that is, what constitutes life, is like wax: it retains its identity but only changes shape and constantly appears as new individuals. This is the nature of being: nothing in the world remains in one state, everything flows, every phenomenon is in progress, time itself moves steadily, like a river. Night turns into day, day into night, the moon has different phases, the year has different seasons. Nor will our bodies remain tomorrow what they are today or what they were yesterday. How many changes does a person undergo in the course of life, from fetus through infancy, crawling, maturity, aging, and unto death! And the whole universe. According to theory of the four elements, everything that exists arises from these very basic elements, and everything then turns into building material. “To be born”means “to begin to be something else.”“To die”means “to stop being what you used to be.”The ingredients are interchangeable, but matter remains the same. What does geology prove? Eternal transformations of the earth. There were seas, and now there are no seas; there were mountains and they have vanished; rivers flowed and dried up; volcanoes erupted and cooled. And that’s just the inanimate nature for you! The law of change in the animal world is even clearer. Caterpillars turn into butterflies, tadpoles into frogs, larvae into bees. Human societies and states are governed by the same principle. Troy has fallen, Pythagoras said to Numa Pompilius, and it is from that fall, thanks to Aeneas, the progenitor of the Julian house, that the Roman Empire will be reborn. It will be very powerful. Pythagoras did not say what would happen to Rome next. After all, everything changes? Yes, everything changes, the golden age has passed, the iron age has come. Therefore, I tell you, do not eat meat, concluded Pythagoras. And Numa Pompilius, having heard his teachings, came to Rome, instituted civilization there, and instructed a nation of warriors in the ways of peaceful coexistence.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“I do not advise offering poetry. Ours is a truly golden age: only gold is valued, and without gifts, Homer himself will be shown the door . But there are a few educated girls and quite a number of snobs. It does not hurt to devote a poem to such a girl once in a while. Since you have virtually nothing but your charms at your disposal, use your talents to play the game. When you are sure that the woman needs you, try to get out of her sight. But don’t be gone for too long. In the absence of Menelaus, Helen consoled herself with Paris.”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet

“Here, gods are used by influencers to show off their wit. Believe in gods? Oh , it’s not in fashion. Some weird cult from Egypt or Asia— well, yes, these novelties are so interesting, why not take that up. But stay away from the old boring gods! From the religion of our ancestors. Better occultism, dark mysticism, reincarnation, debauchery, Isis . There are prostitutes in Isis’s temples!”
― Jacek Bocheński, Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet