[H]e had a damnable suppleness and a gift of immediate response, a readiness to oblige, that made him seem to take up causes which he really left lying, enabled him to learn enough about them in an hour to have all the air of having converted them to his use. . . . He was at all events too clever by half, since this pernicious overflow had wrecked most of his attempts.

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration.

These casks should be placed upon scantling or scaffolding , and not upon the ground in the cellar

But let’s not kid ourselves about bonking for Britain: this is just “the great replacement theory” with a tax code.