Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: The bones of the Sophists long ago turned to dust and what they said turned to dust with them and the dust was buried under the rubble of declining Athens through its fall and Macedonia through its decline and fall. Through the decline and death of ancient Rome and Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and the modern states—buried so deep and with such ceremoniousness and such unction and such evil that only a madman centuries later could discover the clues needed to uncover them, and see with horror what had been done.
“Sell the country, bury bones. What else?”
the unself-conscious policeman
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)
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Halldór Laxness 216
Icelandic author 1902–1998Related quotes
“Thankless country, thou shalt not possess even my bones!”
Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem mea habes.
Epitaph ordered by Scipio to be placed upon his tomb in Campania, as reported in Valerius Maximus Factorvm et dictorvm memorabilivm libri Novem, Lib. V http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/valmax5.html, cap. iii; translation from Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men (1887), p. 477
“I told myself before the game, 'he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else”
but I was wrong.
Regarding Pelé, whom he was assigned to mark, in the 1970 World Cup Finals.
Attributed
Quoted in Seeking a Nation Within a Nation, CBC Canada https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPCONTENTSE1EP5CH12LE.html