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Quotes by Greek Authors
"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."
"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."
"Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope."
"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."
"History is Philosophy teaching by examples."
"Riches are not forbidden, but the pride of them is."
"I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia."
"If you do not the expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail."
"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?"
"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."
"The oldest, shortest words - "yes" and "no" - are those which require the most thought."
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
"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."
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
"There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change."
"The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."
"A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one."
"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."
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