“I am singing now while Rome
burns.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "I am singing now while Rome burns." by Richard Siken?
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Richard Siken 54
American poet 1967

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Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 223
Context: Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic: it has no attributes peculiar to fallen angels. It is not even Machiavellian, for Machiavelli's teaching was graceful, subtle, and colorful. Nor is it Neronian. Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.

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Artemus Ward, His Travels http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/eafbin2/toccer-eaf?id=Weaf483&tag=public&data=/www/data/eaf2/private/texts&part=0, Lecture (1865).

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