Browse Quotes
Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich. (Hays translation)
He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.
What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it. (Hays translation)
Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)
There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and never return. (Hays translation)
From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be bo...
Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, o...
If you are wholly perplexed and in straits, have patience, for patience is the key to joy.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a...
Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations...[http://www.nietzschesource.org/e...
One must be born to any superior world — to make it plainer, one must be bred for it. One has a right to philosophy (taking the word in its greatest sense) only by virtue of one's breeding; one's ance...
Those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty,...
Perception and knowledge could never be the same.
We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus [all things being equal] of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses—in short from fewer premisses; for... given that all these...
Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distrac...
The idol of your self is the mother of all idols. To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.
Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills
I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, ...
It is not truth that makes man great, but man that makes truth great.
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?
[T]hey pronounce absurdly who thus speak, as the Pythagoreans assert: for at the same time they make the infinite to be essence, and distribute it into parts.
To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.
Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn for...
The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
The life that I aspire to liveNo man proposeth me—No trade upon the streetWears its emblazonry.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of t...
Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be re...
Follow the seasons of Ha,Ride in the state carriage of Yau,Wear the ceremonial cap of Chan,Let the music be the Shiu with its pantomimes.