Saturday, July 16, 2011

Of course Tecs and AA would just love it

There is an old saying about life in Göttingen, still inscribed in Latin nowadays on the wall of the entrance to the Ratskeller (the restaurant located in the basement of the old town hall): Extra Gottingam non est vita, si est vita, non est ita (There is no life outside Göttingen. Even if it is life, it is no life like here).

"Ancient university towns are wonderfully alike. Göttingen is like Cambridge in England or Yale in America: very provincial, not on the way to anywhere - no one comes to these backwaters except for the company of professors. And the professors are sure that this is the centre of the world. There is an inscription in the Rathskeller there which reads 'Extra Gottingam non est vita', 'Outside Göttingen there is no life'. This epigram, or should I call it epitaph, is not taken as seriously by the undergraduates as by the professors."(Bronowski, 1973, The Ascent of Man, p. 360)

1 comment:

Tecumseh said...

I think the correct saying is, "When you leave New York, you ain't goin' nowhere". An old Romanian proverb.