Who said bread and circus

The French equivalent of the phrase bread and circuses is a more accurate translation since it is du pain et des jeux , meaning bread and games. The history and condition of theaters in this country present a curious struggle between the Puritanic element, which is against them, and the High-Church element, which, if it does not support, does not vehemently attack them.

The theater during our Revolution was condemned by Congress assembled, as taking the attention of the people away from the serious and terrible business of driving the enemy from our shores, and confirming the simple Declaration of Independence. In Paris , however, in the fiercest throes of their Revolution , the French Government provided bread and games —which latter did not forbid Paris from affording the stupendous quota of forty thousand of her sons to the invincible armies.

Bob Ballinger wrote:. Oh sure, there has always been a vocal minority, crying, calling attention to the wrath that is to come, but those small, few, voices have been so marginalized that they are almost and altogether unnoticed.

The rest of us have enjoyed our bread and games. The earliest instances of bread and circuses that I have found are from The Spirit of Study , by a certain G. She also practises etching, pen-and-ink drawing, as well as crayon and water-color sketching.

I tell you, madam, most distinctly and emphatically, that it is bread pudding and the meanest kind at that. No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty.

In Tiefurt we partook of a magnificent collation consisting of a mug of beer, brown bread and sausage! Newhall Street, and a new thoroughfare made in continuation of Bread Street. Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; for the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses.

The purpose of bread and circuses is, as Neil Postman said in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, to distract, to divert emotional energy towards the absurd and the trivial and the spectacle while you are ruthlessly stripped of power. I hear an almost inaudible but pervasive discontent with the price we pay for our current materialism. And I hear a fluttering of hope that there might be more to life than bread and circuses. That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of 'bread and circuses' can compensate for the damage done-these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence-because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.

We love against the night, burning like stars against the darkness of bread and circuses. I read the Romans had bread and circuses. We had home relief and boxing. The Romans always wanted bread and circuses-food and entertainement! As we destroy their city, I will offer them both.

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Login Sign Up. Bread And Circuses Quotes facebook twitter googleplus. Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt Juvenal. Giving , Circus , Bread. It's just too difficult to get upset when your belly is full and your mind is distracted. The idea that people can be pacified by food and entertainment when they should be rallying to their prescribed civic duties isn't a new one.

In fact, the concept was first described in ancient times by the satirical Roman poet Juvenal, who penned the Latin term panem et circenses , which means "bread and circuses. Within a mere years, Rome underwent massive governmental changes. What in B.

Thus, Juvenal's term, "bread and circuses" went viral, used by scores of people -- then and now -- to describe people who voluntarily trade their democratic freedoms in exchange for stable-yet-controlling government. Back then, the Roman government kept the Roman people pacified by offering them free food and rousing entertainment in the Roman Colosseum. Now, "bread and circuses" applies to any civic or governmental entity -- or any situation, really -- in which the masses willingly accept short-term solutions to ease their discontent.