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Matthew Parris

Why it’s right to criticise the newly dead

20 March 2014

3:00 PM

20 March 2014

3:00 PM

I could start by remarking that we should not speak ill of the dead, quoting the pertinent Latin phrase: de mortuis nil nisi bonum (‘of the dead, only good’). But this would be to miss a key qualification because the whole quote (from Diogenes Laertius, circa ad 300) adds ‘dicendum est’: ‘is to be said’.

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