There’s an Onion story ( www.theonion.com ) with the title “Congress Approves $4 millon for bread, circuses.”
I know this is a take-off on a famous quote about the masses being happy as long as they get bread and circus entertainment.Probably Roman. The Onion story throws around words like “plebians” and “patrician.” Original quote?
And, while we are at it, where’s a good place to look up quotations on the Internet?
“Bread and circuses, cabbages and kings.”
Alice in Wonderland (or was it through the looking glass) Either way it appeared in the poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter”. Mr. Lewis, when not photographing young, naked girls, was quite out there.
Sorry, it’s not from Lewis Carroll. The correct quotation is:
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things.
Of ships and shoes and sealing wax,
And cabbages and kings.
And why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
I will be surprized if you find THE quote, I think the phrase was in general use when it was a general practice in Rome. I might make a bet on Gibbens “Rise and Fall…”
Bartlett’s only goes up to 1901. I poked around with various web quotation pages, none would find the famous Karl Marx quotation (religion=opiate of the masses)
This one was somewhat interesting to browse: http://www.h2net.net/p/connect2/quotes.html