In Literature
"Vespasian's axiom" is referred to in passing in the Balzac short story Sarrasine in connection with the mysterious origins of the wealth of a Parisian family. The proverb receives some attention in Roland Barthes' detailed analysis of the Balzac story in his critical study S/Z. It is possible that F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to Vespasian's jest in The Great Gatsby with the phrase "non-olfactory money."
In That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, the Warden of Bracton College is given the nickname "Non-Olet" for having written "a monumental report on National Sanitation. The subject had, if anything, rather recommended him to the Progressive Element. They regarded it as a slap in the face for the dilettanti and Die-hards, who replied by christening their new Warden Non-Olet."
Read more about this topic: Pecunia Non Olet
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“One of the necessary qualifications of an efficient business man in these days of industrial literature seems to be the ability to write, in clear and idiomatic English, a 1,000-word story on how efficient he is and how he got that way.... It seems that the entire business world were devoting its working hours to the creation of a school of introspective literature.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)