"Because, therefore, it is a thing so difficult, impossible, and far beyond Hercules labours to be performed; let them be rude, stupid, ignorant, incult, lapis super lapidem sedeat [let stone sit on stone], and as the apologist will, Resp. tussi, et graveolentia laboret, mundus vitio [let the State cough and choke, the world be corrupt], let them be barbarous as they are, let them tyrannise, epicurise, oppress, luxuriate, consume themselves with factions, superstitions, lawsuits, wars and contentions, live in riot, poverty, want, misery; rebel, wallow as so many swine in their own dung, with Ulysses' companions, stultos jubeo esse libenter [I give them full permission to be fools]. I will yet, to satisfy and please myself, make an Utopia of mine own, a new Atlantis, a poetical commonwealth of mine own, in which I will freely domineer, build cities, make laws, statutes, as I list myself. And why may I not?"
Democritus to the Reader, from 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' by Robert Burton
