Library of Samuel Teleki: Part One

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if indeed the seeds of all the arts by which states are chiefly preserved, of piety, justice, fortitude, and especially prudence, have been set forth as if by the monuments of letters. 1.) Muretus, Oration II, on the Praises of Letters. And certainly, whether we look back at the space of past time and the whole memory of antiquity, or consider these very times in which we live, we will find the fortune of the republic to be joined with the fortune of the literary cause, and that the more nations and peoples have been cultured and polished in all humanity by the best laws, institutions, and morals, the more they have shown themselves to be studious of books and libraries. For, to pass over in silence the peoples of the East, who are too separated and remote in place and time, it is confirmed by the most certain monuments of history that in ancient times the Greeks and Romans, the masters of the world, surpassed all the nations of their own age in every kind of elegance and culture, and that they not only published very many monuments of talent consigned to writing for the public, but also