Isocrates
Piety consists not in expensive expenditures, but in changing nothing of what our ancestors have handed down.
Greek is defined not by race but by education. All of us, whatever our time and place, who have been shaped by Greek books are in this sense Greek.
Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.
Never does that deserve the name of philosophy which is of no immediate value.
I hold that man wise who can usually think out the best cause to take, and that man a philosopher who seeks to gain that insight.
A man who is educated would be first, capable of usually hitting upon the right course. Secondly, he will meet any company, however disagreeable, with easy good temper and show to all men fairness and gentleness. Thirdly he will be master of himself in misfortune and pain. Fourth and most importantly, his head will not be turned by success.
Most people listen only to those who support their desires.
If you truly wish to find out what is best, listen equally to those who oppose you as to those who try to please you.
The Constitution is the soul of the State.
It behooves a cultured person to take the best part of all aspects of education, just as the bee takes the best part of every flower.
To be a Greek is to be educated.
Silius Italicus
It is when we are in misery that we revere the Gods; the prosperous seldom approach the altar.
Glory is a torch to kindle the noble mind.
The Emperor Julian
Things that are sacred to the Gods and holy ought to be performed away from the beaten track in peace and quiet.
How can the man who, while worshipping Zeus the God of Companions, sees his neighbors in need and does not give them a dime - how can he think he is worshipping Zeus properly?
I sacrificed in the evening and again at early dawn as I am in the habit of doing.
That the human race possesses its knowledge of God by nature and not from teaching is proved to us first by all the universal yearning for the divine that is in all men, wherever they are from. For all of us, without being taught, have attained to a belief in some sort of divinity, though it is not easy for all men to know the precise truth about it, nor is it possible for those who do know it to tell it to all men.
Leonidas
When the ephors said, "Haven't you decided to do anything other than block the passages against the barbarians?" he said, "In theory, no, but in actual fact to die for the Greeks." When someone said, "It isn't possible even to see the sun because of the barbarians' arrows," he said, "How nice, then, if we are to fight them in the shade." When Xerxes wrote to him, "If you do not fight against the Gods, but side with me, you can be monarch of Greece," he wrote back, "If you knew what was good in life, you would refrain from desiring what belongs to other people; as for me it is better to die for Greece than be monarch of the people of my race." When Xerxes wrote again, "Hand over your weapons," he wrote back, "Come and take them."
He passed the word to his soldiers to eat breakfast in the expectation that they would be having dinner with Hades.
When asked why the best men prefer an honorable death to a life without honor, he said, "Because they regard the latter as the gift of Nature, and the former as being in their own hands."
Leotychidas
When asked what children should learn in particular, he said: "The things that should be advantageous to them when they are adults."
Livy
Whatever is most honorable is also safest.
Longinus
Nature never intended man to be a low, groveling creature. From the moment of his birth she imparts in him an inextinguishable love for the noble and good.
Lucian
You are right, Momus, these things are unseemly. Yet most of them are a matter of symbolism and someone who is not an initiate into the Mysteries really should not laugh at them.
Lucretius
All life is a struggle in the dark.
Nothing can be created out of nothing.
Copyright 2002 Sannion
All Rights Reserved
Posted with permission
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