public spectacle

spectacles

is the price of water in a siege: the besieged excuse a pound for a pint as necessity, but we feel no astonishment at boundless waste that neither relieves want nor enhances respectability.

Recast in definition form from: “… to pay a pound for a pint of water, at the first hearing it seems incredible and all are amazed; yet when they consider the case they excuse it on the plea of necessity; but in this immense waste and these boundless expenditures we feel no great astonishment, and that too, though neither is want thus relieved nor respectability enhanced, …”

please boys, weak women, slaves, and free men most like slaves, but cannot be approved by a serious man who weighs what is done by fixed principles.

Recast in definition form from: “these things are gratifying to boys, and weak women, and slaves, and to free men who bear the nearest resemblance to slaves; but that they cannot by any means be approved by a serious man and one who weighs what is done by fixed principles”

Aristo of CeosThinkers

Aristo of Ceos