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Quotes by Greek Authors
"There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult."
"History is Philosophy teaching by examples."
"Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence."
"Riches are not forbidden, but the pride of them is."
"Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion."
"All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else."
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
"What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?"
"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."
"The oldest, shortest words - "yes" and "no" - are those which require the most thought."
"The female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the catamenia are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul."
"But if cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves."
"If you do not the expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail."
"There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change."
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
"The beginning seems to be more than half of the whole."
"The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself."
"Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided."
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost."
"Caring about the happiness of others, we find our own."
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