Whose words “I am a man and nothing human is alien to me”? I am a human being, and nothing human is alien to me. Terence Publius Nothing human is alien to us meaning

“NOTHING HUMAN IS ALIEN TO ME,”

THE CHIEF CONDUCTING THE MEETING WAS POISONOUSLY NOTICED

TO THE WHISPERING JUNIOR OFFICERS,—

“I NOT ONLY GROWL, BUT I CAN ALSO BITE!”

(Ship folklore.)

If several people tell you something stupid or obvious nonsense, then at first you laugh, then you try to prove the opposite, then you simply don’t pay attention, then you get angry, and in the end you somehow want to believe it.

Obvious flattery is primitive and transparent, it is even annoying, but, damn it, how pleasant it is! For even smart people very often internally have something stopping them from shutting up the fountain of someone’s flattery.

You will never make the first impression on commanders and subordinates the second time!

Those who have power are always pushed by something to abuse it.

Not a single tyrant considers himself such. He is simply sincerely confident that his position is the most correct!

A memorial address on the occasion of leaving the service is an opportunity to independently read or hear your own obituary during your lifetime.

If you suffer one failure after another, but you think that life is striped like a vest, and you must expect success soon, then look around - perhaps because of your stubbornness, absent-mindedness or sloppiness you are being carried along a black stripe.

Anyone who wants to drink champagne takes a risk! But, most often, by those who drink vodka immoderately.

To make it easier to remember something, we come up with various conventional marks and mnemonic signs - crosses, knots, etc. Then we often painfully remember - what does this mean?

Having prepared, just in case, a brilliant “grand piano in the bushes,” you must also prevent no one from going into these bushes of yours “out of need.” Big or small.

With age, you gain work experience, which you cannot buy, and you deepen your theoretical knowledge in a special field, which you cannot immediately collect. And, the saddest thing is that you inevitably acquire some knowledge in medicine, from which you cannot escape. So to speak, “in your own skin” and insides...

Occupational diseases are free additions to the service record: radiculitis - from the post of a watch officer on a running watch, gastritis - from a ship's galley, rheumatism - from combat services, nerves - from superiors, heart - from subordinates, arrhythmia - from night alarms, hemorrhoids and prostatitis - from staff work and business trips, cynicism - from too long service.

The biggest thing that irritates us about young officers is that we no longer belong to them. And the worst thing is that we will never belong to them again! They will still be able to become older and experienced, and we will become young - wow!

The submariner (with solid experience in autonomous vehicles) differs from everyone else in that he heroically rushes to plug even ruptured garden hoses with his body and stubbornly and habitually closes behind him all the doors that he passes, even at the dacha, thereby annoying all normal “civilians” people to the point of “white heat” and tetanus amazement. And also - that special metal - God knows - what else, the smell from his uniform, which he brings into his house, immediately detected by all women and absolutely invisible to him.

The submariner sincerely hates all open doors and those who do not close them behind them.

Any queue evokes a desire to look for ways to bypass it in order to achieve the cherished goal at its beginning, as well as a desire to mobilize the capabilities of one’s friends for this purpose.

The more peaceful a person seems (or considers himself), the more often he has to prove it with his fists.

An officer who is rightly considered indispensable in any matter tries not to let anyone else get close to this very matter, so that his high authority does not fade.

An officer temporarily appointed to a position (without the prospect of confirmation in it in the future), or who feels himself “temporary”, expecting or waiting for something, as a rule, tries not to break anything, to preserve with the help of supports and pads, but nothing new and does not create something durable!

They say that living a measured and planned life is boring. It’s interesting that military personnel officially plan every day of their lives in “Combat Training Plans”, but nevertheless, they never get bored!

If you know how to do something very well, in addition to your official duties, this is what you will do in the service. In my own time...

(Once you do this once, your friends will accidentally tell your boss about your talents.)

Koschey the Immortal naively considered himself immortal and became insolent. For which they slammed me.

The big boss never takes a full vacation. He is afraid to demonstrate to everyone that they will be able to do without him for a long time, and also, by his absence, to provoke insidious thoughts that without him, things in the connection may not go any worse.

You can’t send a loved one far!

If you don’t want to call someone a naive fool, say that he is an optimist!

If a pedantic officer finds himself in an extreme situation, he still continues to carry out the entire list of activities in these conditions - starting with those that are already unnecessary and irrelevant, and diverting to them the forces and means necessary for urgent actions.

A military pensioner loves to remember the harsh everyday life of naval service in order to more fully experience and experience once again all the delights of civilian life.

If, after you left, things in your native part went a little worse, you feel some grief, but, however, an increase in secret self-esteem, too.

Wrinkling your forehead is an attempt to exert administrative pressure on your own lazy brains.

It is possible to create something new, modern and original only by deviating from existing views, requirements of directives and instructions. If only they let you do it.

If there is no special desire to think about and develop something while completing a task, then mental work turns into hard physical work.

You can avoid conviction (and even trial) for violating existing norms, directives and requirements only by convincingly defeating someone or something.

The winners are not judged! In any case, immediately and in open court.

If there is force (physical or administrative), then it is easier to prove the presence of intelligence. At least those who doubt it very much will not speak out. By ear.

March 8 is the most military holiday, because only on this day there are no ceremonial formations or other official events that take up your personal time. Finally, on this day you do not need to drink at the festive table to the health of the boss present. He may be offended, he’s not really that kind of person…. Perhaps only for the health of his wife. And we always drink with pleasure to all women.

If your child’s friends gave your child a toy machine gun that loudly imitates shooting for his birthday, you have the right to give their offspring a big drum without even waiting for his birthday. Free but valuable Jesuit advice: with the best results, this can be done on a Saturday evening. Revenge is sweet!

Law of inevitability of events: If m officers (midshipmen or men in general) gathered together are forced to idle or spend time t not busy performing a specific task that is clear to them, and being confident that the probability of verification is less than 50%, then after a period t/2 the youngest of them will be sent for n bottles of vodka. The law begins to operate under the following conditions: m > 2, t > 3. Then n tends to exceed 0.5 liters per person. n/m >= 0.5 liters. If astronomical time is very close to evening, then the probability of a second “flight” to the store is more than 50%.

The new scientific work of a high-ranking boss is most likely a compilation of two or three old works of his subordinates.

Gossip is news that does not require confirmation.

No one will ever secretly whisper to a neighbor how smart or decent you are.

When they say something nice to their boss and add: “I’m not flattering you,” it means they want to make the flattery quite subtle. Or strengthen it by pretending that they are telling the boss the honest truth!

New boss and old laws.

The greater the geographical distance to the boss, the better the attitude towards him. When he comes to get to know you better, in more than 66% of cases his attitude towards you worsens, and your love for him gradually fades!

The best way to respect a big boss is from afar.

The newly appointed boss considers the previous boss either lazy or an idiot! How else can we explain attempts to radically change the previous order!

If this boss cannot immediately invent something new, he crushes the old...

While crushing the old, he sincerely believes in his contribution to the creation of the new.

He considers severity and inflexibility to be a sign of a new management style - even where this is not necessary!

The new boss is distinguished by his peremptory and autocratic decisions.

It is more difficult to convince a new boss that any of his decisions or chosen courses are wrong.

For a new boss, there are no authorities in the team for a long time, which aggravates the departure from the previous course.

The new boss more often bites the bit and rushes towards the intended goal off-road, not caring that everyone in his cart is jumping and shaking!

During the process of forging his happiness, a person receives troubles as by-products.

Refusal to take radical measures against small and large dirty tricks, covered in words by pity for their parents and future fate, is in fact a concern for the purity of one’s face or the safety of one’s own “skin.”

If a young commander (boss) believes that he communicates his demands more clearly to his subordinates through slaps, it means that he simply considers himself the leader of a herd of monkeys.

When there are so many things to do that you don’t know what to do, then you inevitably grab your head!

The straightening convolutions, like old springs, become more and more difficult to strain!

It is very difficult to move your brain when the convolutions have already straightened out!

The direct flow of military thought is still hampered by remnants of convolutions.

An experienced officer has many convolutions. But they are somehow ossified and do not want to change their shape.

Some people confuse the wrinkles of their brain with the convolutions, trying to force them to produce an original solution.

Wrinkles on the forehead are a trace of straightened convolutions that were not used in a timely manner during military service.

People's careers are like missiles - ballistic, low-flying, guided and NURS. Some fly high, but, in the end, fall to the ground, others, flying low above the ground, fulfilling their real, mundane goals and not striving for transcendental distances, some are controlled by the control center and follow a strictly specified curve, while the latter rush in life, everywhere, they scare and offend everyone, and then burn beautifully.

It is very difficult to remain silent, especially when no one asks your opinion.

Those who fight for freedom of conscience most likely hope for freedom from conscience.

A young officer produces more original ideas and heuristic solutions than an experienced one, not because he is smarter. An experienced campaigner simply already knows that he will have to carry them out, looking for non-existent means and reserves...

When his youth ends, the officer has to come up with another excuse for his stupid antics, rash actions and ridiculous mistakes.

Mistakes can be your own and those of others. Experience is the son of difficult mistakes; it allows you to avoid them in the future, or make them at a higher performing level. It also allows you to warn younger, smart colleagues against them. The more stupid ones still prefer their own fresh mistakes to evading the old ones of others. And one more thing - you can’t draw any conclusions from mistakes at all - if their consequences did not affect you. Or it didn’t hurt too much!

Among modern midshipmen there are still veterans of the old school, who simply need to be given the task that a perpetual motion machine is needed, but not to say that it does not exist in principle. And then they will certainly find the last unaccounted copy of it with some friend of theirs in a forgotten warehouse. If you come across advanced midshipmen, savvy in theoretical physics, then you need to tell them that it was still made, but only in a few copies. And here, the main thing is not to miss the moment when they will attach one of them to their “Zhiguli”, or install it in their own garage for free lighting and smoking “hams” for a snack...

Even smart people often choose as like-minded individuals those individuals who simply cannot fit more than one thought into their heads. Just out of stupidity.

Combining their thinking apparatus together to solve an urgent non-standard task confidently ensures its failure.

It is better to agree with the commander, without agreeing, than, without agreeing, to carry out his instructions, according to the issued instructions, albeit absolutely incompetent, but under his full and vigilant control.

Having fallen off from somewhere, flying is not so bad. Falling in and finding out that the water is wet and cold, or the deck is hard, is exactly what is not pleasant at all.

When God takes away an office, he certainly returns reason!

As a result of administrative and educational measures in formations and units, it happens that completely different parts of the body are put in place of removed heads.

A head repeatedly removed administratively or torn off by ferocious bosses becomes, over time, more careful and cunning. But not smarter.

During “autonomy”, inside a durable hull, submariners differ from each other, regardless of positions and ranks, only in the size and pattern of yellow spots on their blue disposable shorts!

“You feel best as a submariner when you are on vacation. But we still have to try to live up to it somehow!” - from the speech of the submarine commander, before the start of preparations for going to sea.

Vacation is the fifth and always the best time of the year.

Having received a leave ticket, an intelligent and experienced officer quickly disappears from the sight of his superior at super-squealing speed, leaving behind a trail of dust, fallen leaves or a white snowstorm (depending on the time of year). Until the bosses remembered what he didn’t have time to finish. The young and overly arrogant officer continues to cruise in the line of sight of his superiors, irritating him with his independence and non-involvement in the problems that plague the commanders. For which he, one way or another, then pays.

If your boss knows where you are, don’t be there!

If maneuver, action, shooting, etc. if you went differently, but still brought at least some result, do not show surprise outwardly, but act confidently - looking bored, that this is how it was all supposed to be.

If you don’t want to do anything today, it’s better not to do anything! So that you don’t have to redo anything tomorrow. But if tomorrow...

No matter how much you sleep during working hours, you still won’t be able to compensate for those days off and “gatherings” that your boss took away from you!

The more subordinates of different categories, the greater the desire to shift to them not only official affairs, but also household and economic responsibilities, justifying themselves to themselves not by laziness, but by being busy...

When working through a bunch of introductory notes from your boss, and not meeting the deadlines, you need to remember that you will still get something from him for something, just a little more for something else.

An officer puts on a white shirt, or appears in one in formation, when: a) full dress uniform is announced;

b) the appropriate dress code is announced;

c) you need to pretend that you are wearing a dress jacket under your overcoat

d) there is a festive event coming up;

e) you have to go to a restaurant in military uniform;

f) he is about to be rewarded or “dragged out” by a high-ranking boss,

g) after such an event, he never managed to get to his house or cabin until the flag was raised.

h) goes on a date with a woman for the first time (especially with a new one who still has no idea about him);

i) you have to run to the ship to raise the flag directly from her;

j) goes to a test or exam, trying to make a better external impression of himself on the teacher (the corresponding boss or specialist) than his knowledge will make;

k) it was not possible to find clean and ironed cream shirts in the closet, and there was no time left before construction.

l) his wife is on vacation, the laundry was planned for the weekend, and Monday came suddenly and too unexpectedly (after a horde of bored friends raided his apartment), and there was nothing left to choose from in the closet. ..

Retirement is the last chance to become young. By type: “young cadet”, “young officer”, “young commander”, “newlywed”, and... “young pensioner”.

Hopelessness is when you have to believe the promises of your boss, and hopelessness - even the government.

Increasing the salaries of a government official in order to increase his immunity to bribes leads to an inevitable increase in the size of bribes and gifts necessary to resolve issues under his jurisdiction, as well as the minimally decent prices of gifts for his birthday!

The smart one is looking for a solution, the strong and skillful one is looking for ways to implement this idea, and the cunning one is looking for one person who would come up with everything and another who would do it all instead of him.

When a subordinate’s head is unusually loaded at once with a large volume of knowledge that has fallen on him, the speed of reaction to commands and tasks decreases sharply, and even outwardly there is some smoking of his hairstyle from the hard work of the convolutions.

“It’s not the place that makes the man! And a man decorates his place!” - said the formation commander, who was in charge of the restructuring of his new office.

S.F.ILIN (V.Belko)

I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me
From Latin: Homo sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto (Homo sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto).
The author of the expression is the Roman comedian Terence (Publius Terence Afr, c. 195-159 BC). In the comedy “The Self-Tormentor,” an old man named Khremet says (act. 1, scene 1): “I am a man! Nothing human is alien to me.” After the production of this comedy, the phrase became a catchphrase.

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From the book Twilight of the Idols. Ecce Homo (collection) author Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm

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From the book History of People author Antonov Anton

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11. Behold, all who are angry against you will remain in shame and disgrace; Those who argue with you will be like nothing and will perish. 12. You will seek them, and you will not find them hostile to you; those who fight with you will be like nothing, absolutely nothing; 13. For I am the Lord your God; I hold you by your right hand,

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Are you familiar with the aphorism “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me”? In modern life and culture, this saying has become a convenient and capacious formula for self-justification for everyone who does not want to follow the difficult path of honesty and dignity. Whoever does not want to live according to the easy but difficult Ten Commandments easily justifies himself: “What? Nothing human is alien to me!”

Is this the meaning of this aphorism that we put into it, justifying our weaknesses?

A little history

In Foreign Literature, we studied Publius Terence’s comedy “Heautontimorumenos” (“He who punishes himself”; in Russian editions – “The Self-Tormentor”). The play tells how Clinias, the son of the old man Menedemos, fell in love with a neighbor's girl. The father, in order to stop communication, treated his son harshly. Clinias left home and entered military service. My father was greatly tormented by his conscience. He began to exhaust himself with backbreaking labor in the field, doing the work that his slaves had previously done. The old neighbor Khremet asks Menedem why he exhausts himself from morning to evening, having a rich estate and slaves: “You don’t give yourself any rest or time.” And he hears in response:

Menedemos

Don't you have enough to do, Khremet?
You're getting into someone else's business! It's up to you
Doesn't matter at all.

Khremet

I am human!
Nothing human is alien to me.
Allow me a question, allow me an exhortation.
If you are right, then I will do the same,
If you're wrong, I'll try to reject you.

(Act 1. Scene 1)

Khremet’s words became an aphorism. But it is unlikely that Terence imagined that these words would be given a completely different meaning than they originally had.

Nothing human is alien - it is to help and do good

Khremet’s words express the idea of ​​a person’s involvement in everything human - about a person’s participation in the joys and sorrows of another person. In ancient Roman literature, this saying became an expression of the idea of ​​social unity, for all people have the same nature.

Nature produces us all as brothers, made of the same elements, destined for the same purposes. She puts in us a feeling of love, making us sociable, gives life the law of equality and justice, and, according to her ideal laws, there is nothing more base than to offend, it is better to be offended. It makes us ready to help and do good.

Nature created us so that we share the entire set of rights among ourselves and use them all together. And when I say “nature,” I want to be understood in this way throughout this entire discussion.

Our vices are destroying us

But the depravity associated with bad inclinations is so great that it seems to extinguish the lights given to us by nature, and vices hostile to them arise and strengthen. And if people - both by the dictates of nature and by virtue of their judgment - recognized that about “nothing human is alien to them,” as the poet said, then in our world it would be much calmer and more joyful.

I repeat that in modern life and culture the aphorism “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me” has become a convenient and capacious formula for self-justification for everyone who does not want honesty and integrity the hard way.This is not the meaning we put into these words. Not the same at all.

Let us keep the words in our hearts: “I am a human being, and nothing human is alien to me.”.

Let us always remember that “we are born for society, and our society is like a stone vault that does not fall only because the stones, leaning on one another, support each other, and they, in turn, firmly hold the vault.” . (Seneca Lucius Annaeus. Moral letters to Lucilius)

Can a Christian be guided by the saying: “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me”?

Valery

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:

The saying “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,” which became an aphorism, first appeared in 162 BC. in the comedy of Publius Terentius Afra (c. 195 - 159 BC) “Heautontimorumenos” (“He who punishes himself”; in Russian editions – “The Self-Tormentor”). The play tells how Clinias, the son of the old man Menedemos, fell in love with a neighbor's girl. The father, in order to stop communication, treated his son harshly. Clinias left home and entered military service. My father was greatly tormented by his conscience. He began to exhaust himself with backbreaking labor in the field, doing the work that his slaves had previously done. The old neighbor Khremet asks Menedem why he exhausts himself from morning to evening, having a rich estate and slaves: “You don’t give yourself any rest or time.” And he hears in response:

Menedemos

Don't you have enough to do, Khremet?

You're getting into someone else's business! It's up to you

Doesn't matter at all.

Khremet

I am human!

Nothing human is alien to me.

Allow me a question, allow me an exhortation.

If you are right, then I will do the same,

If you're wrong, I'll try to reject you.

(Act 1. Scene 1)

Khremet’s words became an aphorism. But Terence hardly imagined that they would be one of the most famous aphorisms many centuries later. He could not foresee that these words would be given a completely different meaning than they originally had. Khremet’s words express the idea of ​​a person’s involvement in everything human - about a person’s participation in the joys and sorrows of another person. In ancient Roman literature, this saying became an expression of the idea of ​​social unity, for all people have the same nature. Thus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC - 65 AD) wrote: “Nature produces us all as brothers, made of the same elements, assigned to the same purposes. She puts in us a feeling of love, making us sociable, gives life the law of equality and justice, and, according to her ideal laws, there is nothing more base than to offend, it is better to be offended. It makes us ready to help and do good. Let us keep in our hearts and on our lips the words: “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.” Let us always remember that we were born for society, and our society is like a stone vault, which does not fall only because the stones, leaning on one another, support each other, and they, in turn, firmly hold the vault" ( Seneca Lucius Annaeus. Moral letters to Lucilius. Letter XCV).

Earlier, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) used Terence’s aphorism: “Nature created us so that we would share the entire set of rights among ourselves and use them all together. And when I say “nature,” I want to be understood in this way throughout this entire discussion. But the depravity associated with bad inclinations is so great that it seems to extinguish the lights given to us by nature, and vices hostile to them arise and strengthen. And if people - both by the dictates of nature and by virtue of their judgment - recognized that “nothing human is alien to them,” as the poet says, then they would all equally respect the law” (Cicero Marcus Tullius. Dialogues. M., 1994. P. 99).

The substantiation of the correct idea of ​​the unity of humanity in both Cicero and Seneca has a naturalistic character. Biblical Christian teaching overcomes the limitations of the pagan worldview. The Apostle Paul, speaking in the Areopagus, gave a precise theological justification for the idea of ​​the unity of the human race: “Of one blood He made the whole human race to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). The Lord Creator not only produced all people from one person (Adam), but also laid down the basic laws of human life and the main goal of human life - the desire for God (so that “they would seek God, see if they would feel Him and find Him, although He is not far away from each of us" (Acts 17:27). After the Incarnation and the Redemptive Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, true unity of humanity is possible only in Christ.

Neither in the period of early Christianity, nor in the Middle Ages did Christians turn to Terence’s aphorism. Only in the Renaissance, when humanistic philosophy arose, Terence’s aphorism began to be used to apologize man and justify his weaknesses and even vices. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) wrote: “Man is rightly called and considered a great miracle, a living being truly worthy of admiration” (“Speech on the Dignity of Man”). Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536), responding to the harsh and rude statements of M. Luther, notes: “If you limited yourself to two or three attacks, it might seem that they escaped you by accident, but this book is seething with reproaches everywhere! With them you begin, with them you end. If you were content with one of the ridicule of this kind, as calling me a “log”, “donkey” or “mushroom”, I would not answer anything except the words: “I am a man, and I think nothing human is alien to me” ( Erasmus of Rotterdam. Hyperaspistes // Erasmus of Rotterdam. Philosophical works. M., 1986. P. 582).

The moral anthropocentrism of humanists inevitably led and led to a break with the great Christian tradition, aimed at the revival of man through the spiritual healing of fallen human nature. “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). The Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers opened the way to victory over sin: “No one, when sinning, can present the weakness of the flesh as an excuse for sin. For unity with God the Word, the resolution of the oath, restored the whole nature in strength, thus making the inclination of the will to passion inexcusable for us. The divinity of the Word, being always co-present by grace with those who believe in Him, drowns out the law of sin that is in the flesh” (Reverend Maximus the Confessor).

The spirit of reconciliation with sin and self-justification gradually gave rise to various ideologies of godlessness and man-theism. F.M. Dostoevsky, in Ivan Karamazov's dialogue with the prince of darkness, shows the demonic nature of human self-justification. The interlocutor who appears to Ivan says: “Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto.” "How how? Satan sum et nihil humanum... this is not stupid for the devil!” - Ivan exclaims and hears in response: “I’m glad that I finally pleased you” (Dostoevsky F.M. The Brothers Karamazov // Dostoevsky F.M. Complete Works. T. 15. M., 1976. P. 74). Reverend Justin (Popovich), commenting on this passage in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov,” says: “The secret of Ivan’s personality has been revealed. It consists of intellectual kinship and intimate friendship with the devil. And just as the devil says to Ivan: “I am Satan, and therefore nothing human is alien to me,” with the same right Ivan can say to the devil: “I am a man and I think that nothing satanic is alien to me.” Man and the devil become, as it were, synonymous; they can compete with each other and replace one another in our human world, and perhaps in some other worlds" (Justin (Popovich), Rev. F.M. Dostoevsky on Europe and the Slavs. Chapter "The Mystery of Atheistic Philosophy and anarchist ethics").

In modern life and culture, the aphorism “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me” has become a convenient and capacious formula for self-justification for everyone who does not want to follow the narrow path of salvation. Whoever does not want to live according to God’s commandments voluntarily submits to the power of demons, for “whoever commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). However, the word of God admonishes the careless: “Whatever a man sows, this will he also reap: whoever sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but whoever sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:7-8).

  1. the speaker, like everyone else, is not alien to human weaknesses and delusions;
  2. that he is deeply concerned about the misfortunes and joys of others, is interested in life in all its manifestations, he is able to understand, respond, and sympathize;
  3. the breadth of interests of the speaker

In Terence, this phrase has an ironic character: in a conversation between two neighbors, one reproaches the other for interfering in other people’s affairs, passing on gossip without thinking about his own home. To this another objected: “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.”


Menedemos:
Is it really not enough for you to do with Khremet?
You're getting into someone else's business!
Yes, it doesn’t concern you at all.
Khremet:I am human! Nothing human is alien to me (Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto)

The expression is very well-known, but I had no information about the author. I took this aphorism as a description of my blog, Naturally, I wanted to know about the history of the origin of this “winged” thought, and having found the name of the author, I became interested in his fate and work. I immersed myself in the Internet...

To be honest, this was the first time I learned this name - TERENCE PUBLIUS, TERENTIUS, PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFR(Publius Terentius Afer)(circa 190-159 BC)- Roman comedian.

Publius Terence was nicknamed the African. It is connected with the origin of the playwright. A captive slave from Carthage, he was in the service of a wealthy Roman senator, who, paying attention to his intelligence and abilities, gave him education, freedom and, as was customary among the Romans for freed slaves, his name.

Sayings, quotes and aphorisms of Terence Publius

  1. Nothing can be said that has not been said before.
  2. A wise person should solve all matters with words, not with weapons.
  3. A prudent man should try everything before resorting to arms.
  4. To be wise means to see not only what is under your feet, but also to foresee the future.
  5. Give equal for equal.
  6. When we are healthy, we all easily give good advice to the sick.
  7. All my hope is in myself.
  8. The highest right is often the highest evil.
  9. The main rule in life is nothing in excess.
  10. Anyone who considers power based on force to be more durable and firm than that based on love is deeply mistaken.
  11. A bad beginning means a bad ending.
  12. A woman will understand a woman more quickly.
  13. Extreme adherence to the rule of law can turn out to be extreme lawlessness.
  14. When two people do the same thing, one can do it with impunity, but the other cannot.
  15. When two people do the same thing, they are no longer the same.
  16. When the spirit hesitates, you can tilt it in one direction or another with any small amount.
  17. Flattery makes friends, truth makes haters.
  18. Love can change a person beyond recognition.
  19. I don't buy hope with money.
  20. There is nothing that cannot be distorted by a bad retelling.
  21. Nobody wants to be related to a beggar.
  22. One lie will give birth to another.
  23. It’s easy to give a false meaning to anything through malicious interpretation.
  24. Slavery is a prison of the soul.
  25. Over the years we get smarter.
  26. How many people, so many opinions.
  27. Fate helps the brave.
  28. A lovers' quarrel is a renewal of love.
  29. Old age is itself a disease.
  30. A hint is enough for a smart person.
  31. Since you cannot do everything you want, wish only for what you can do.
  32. Everyone has their own character.
  33. This is the design of madmen, not lovers.
  34. I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.