Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Gold

"To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as
it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from
ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much,
and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of
earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed
of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and close-
stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls
but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make
chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge
of infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a
chain or a coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care by
all possible means to render gold and silver of no esteem; and from
hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and
silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those metals but as the parting with a trifle"

Monday, April 14, 2014

Livnig


"What kind of justice is it when a nobleman, a goldsmith, a moneylender, or someone else who makes his living by doing either nothing at all or something completely useless to the commonwealth gets to live a life of luxury and grandeur, while in the meantime a laborer, carter, or a farmer works so hard and so constantly that even beasts of burden would scarcely endure it?"

Friday, April 11, 2014

The Affairs

"Every year each city sends three mature and experienced citizens to Amaurot to deliberate on the affairs of the island."

Supper

"They dispatch their dinners quickly, but sit long at supper because they go to work after the one, and are to sleep after the other, during which they think the stomach cries on the concoction more vigorously. They never sup without music and there is always fruit served up after meat; while they are at table some burn perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters–in short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits they give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience"
Marriage


"A woman does not marry before the age of eighteen, nor a man before he's four years older than that. Anyone found guilty of illicit sexual relations prior to marriage is severely reprimanded and permanently banned from marriage, regardless of their sex, unless the governor remits the sentence."

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Slaves

"The Utopians don't regard prisoners of war as slaves, except for those taken in the campaigns they fight themselves; neither do they enslave the children of slaves, or those they take out of slavery in other lands.  Their slaves are either their own people, who have been punished for some shameful act, or, most commonly, foreigners who, for some crime, have been condemned to death in their own cities."

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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Gardening










Gardening

"They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them;The utility of gardens, also praised by Virgil. and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humor of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens."

Thomas More, Utopia