United States or Angola ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is enough that they mean to denote even a very small possession, provided it be a man's own: 'Est aliquid quocunque loco quocunque recessu, Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertæ .
A lesson is never learnt till it is learnt over many times, and a spot is best understood by staying in it and mastering it. In natural history the old scholar's saw of 'Cave hominem unius libri' may be paraphrased by 'He is a thoroughly good naturalist who knows one parish thoroughly.
"Venit huc quidam doctus homo natione Gothus, qui peragravit magnam partem orbis; homo quidem est ingenio acuto, sed inconstans. Idem retulit se vidisse X. decades Livii, duobus voluminibus magnis, et oblongis, scriptas litteris Longobardis, et in titulo esse unius voluminis, in eo contineri decem decades Titi Livii, seque legisse nonnulla in iis voluminibus.
People of one sole accomplishment, like the homo unius libri, are usually within that narrow circle disagreeably perfect, and therefore apt to be arrogant. People who can do all things, usually do every one of them ill; and living in a constant effort to deny this too palpable fact, they become irritably vain. But Mr. Lamb the elder seems to have been bent on perfection.
A scandal is passive and taken by the scandalised without the fault of the doer, only in this case, cum factum unius est alteri occasio peccandi praeter intentionem facientis, et conditionem facti, so that to the making of the doer blameless, is not only required that he intend not his brother’s fall, but also that the deed be neither evil in itself, nor yet done inordinately, and with appearance of evil.
Palmos Galeni. In tremoribus vulgaribus, æqualibus temporum intervallis, non musculus, sed artus ipsemet alternatim attollitur aut deprimitur, aut in oppositas partes it atque redit per minima tamen spatiola; in palpitatione verò sine ullo ordine musculi unius lacertus subito subsilit, nec regulariter continuoque movetur, sed nunc semel aut bis, nunc minimé intra idem tempus subsilit; an causa irritans in sensorio communi, an in musculo ipse palpitante Quærenda sit, ignoramus.
Wherefore Beza saith well of such human rites as are thought to be significant: Quum nulla res signis illis subsit, propterea quod unius Dei est promittere, et suis promissionibus sigillum suum opponere; consequitur omnia illa commenta, inanes esse larvas, et vana opinione miseros homines illis propositis signis deludi.
His mind was altogether concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a profound distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As we have said, Christianity and, later, Catholicism appealed profoundly to his intellectual imagination in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for whose sake he took over all the rest per modum unius.
He, indeed, who sets his mind on the possession of any one of these rarities, may go to his grave a disappointed man. It will be in general the consolation of the collector, however, that he is by no means the "homo unius libri." There is always something or other turning up for him, so long as he keeps within moderate bounds.
Leg. agr. 2, 90 omnibus domesticis externisque bellis; in Catil 2, 11 omnia sunt externa unius virtute pacata; domesticum bellum manet, intus insidiae sunt. The practice of reading military history was common among Roman commanders; see for instance Acad. 2, 3 of Lucullus; the practice is ridiculed by Marius in Sall. Iug. 85.
Word Of The Day