Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.
To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to "praise the gods and educate the youth". In Egypt... Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal.
This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center."
Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
A friend should be like money, tried before being required, not found faulty in our need.
The soul of man... is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe.
Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."
Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.
Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.
To do an evil action is base; to do a good action without incurring danger is common enough; but it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risks every thing.
Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
King Agis said, "The Lacedæmonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are."
I, for my part, wonder of what sort of feeling, mind or reason that man was possessed who was first to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being: who spread his table with the mangled forms of dead bodies, and claimed as daily food and dainty dishes what but now were beings endowed with movement, perception and with voice. …but for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that portion of life and time it had been born in to the world to enjoy.
Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.
Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.
Though others before him had triumphed three times, Pompeius, by having gained his first triumph over Libya, his second over Europe, and this the last over Asia, seemed in a manner to have brought the whole world into his three triumphs.
Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes.
It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief.
He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]
Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.
Grief is like a physical pain which must be allowed to subside somewhat on its own before medical treatment is applied.
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