OK - moving on to the next massive civilopedia project - the tech tree. I need quotations for many techs. I'd very much appreciate suggestions. The full list of techs needing quotes follows. Some could potentially use the same quote as another tech if we can't come up with enough different ones.
Here's a list I that I complied quickly (so there may be typos). I know that some are not the best, but it was just a first pass. If you like some of them I’ll invest more time to do more and find better ones.
Architecture
“Diphilus, the architect, has erected columns that are neither perpendicular nor opposite each other. He will have to pull them down of course. Eventually he will learn the use of the plumb-line and measuring tape” Cicero, Letters to his Brother
Quintus
“You cannot lack architects” ~Trajan, Pliny the Younger, Letters
“Let the foundations of those works be excavated from the solid earth and down to solid ground” Vitruvius, On Architecture
Boat Building
“As wide as a man skilled in ship-joinery marks out the lines for the hull of a board-beamed merchant ship, just so wide did Odysseus make his vessel.” Homer, Odyssey
“A faulty ship is a greater danger than a faulty house” Vegetius, Military Science
Civil Laws
“I gave the demos such privilege as is sufficient to them, neither adding nor taking away” ~Solon, cited in Plutarch
Copper Working
“They say that among the Indians the copper is so bright and pure and without rust, that it is not possible to distinguish it from gold.” Aristotle, On Marvellous Things Heard
Crop Rotation
“..the fruitful wheat fields, which by turns supplied men with ample sustenance from plants at one time, at another gained strength by taking a rest…” Pindar, Nemean Odes
Epics
Muse, direct upon this clan the glorious breath of song, for when men have passed out of our midst, poems and legends convey their noble deeds” Pindar, Pindar’s Victory Song
Exploration
“But I have to smile when I see all those people drawing up maps of the earth and not one explaining it sensibly.” Herodotus, Histories
Heavy Cavalry
“…the Persians drew up squadrons of cataphract cavalry, which were so massed that the angles of their bodies, seamlessly fitted with metal plates, would dazzle with their sparkle the eyes of those facing them…” Ammianus Marcellinus, History
Irrigation
“It’s all the same whether the crops are overwhelmed by the abundance of water or perish of thirst in a waterless field.” Strabo, Geography
“They shall cut off their outflow with dikes and channels, so that they might receive and absorb rainfall, forming streams and springs in all fields and regions below them, providing even the driest places with an abundant supply of water.” Plato, Laws
Nature Cult
“Nature is wholly sufficient in whatever she desires and needs nothing from art; in fact, nature is the origin of the arts themselves.” The Younger Philostratus, Imagines
“For a long time the riches of the earth were hidden, and trees and forests were thought to be the greatest gift to mortals” Pliny, Natural History
Pastoralism
“A sickly herd is a ruinous herd whose ill-health is frequently disastrous for it’s owner” Varro, On Agriculture
“The farmer hopes for reward from the earth, the rancher from his beasts, and for that reason the ploughman abhors the same green growth that the herdsman prays for.” Columella, On Agriculture
Seafaring
“You yourself wait for the proper sailing season to arrive then drag your ship to the sea and load it with suitable cargo in it, that you might bring home profit” Hesiod, Works and Days 618-634
“Look at our ports and the sea, crowded with great ships! The majority of the human race is now at sea.” Juvenal, Satires
Siege Warfare
“The king had many bolt-shooting engines of every sort, and with these he devastated the men fighting desperately from the battlements” Diodorus of Sicily, History
“..examples of what happened this night should give an appreciation of the power of machinery” Siege of Jotapata, Josephus, Jewish War
Tactics
"Who, however, would doubt that the art of war is superior to everything else" Vegetius, Military Science
Tools
“For each tool is finished to the highest degree of perfection if it serves one task rather than many” Aristotle, Politics
Urbanization
“One mistake, and not a small one, made by the engineers was that when paving the roads they did not supply them with underground drainage. Instead filth covers their surface, especially in rain.” [about the city of Smyrna] Strabo, Geography
Wood Working
These are the tools of the carpenter Leotichus: the toothed files, swift devourers of wood…” Leonidas of Tarentum, Greek Anthology
“Already Theophrastus…held this tree in high esteem, relating accounts of beams of this wood in old temples, and the virtual imperishable nature of the material in buildings, unaffected by all causes of decay” Pliny, Natural History