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THE BOOK OF ANCIENT WISDOM
Over 500 Inspiring Quotations from the Greeks and Romans
By BILL BRADFIELD Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14583-9
CHAPTER 1
ADVERSITY
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
~ SOCRATES
Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.
~ HORACE
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely. The fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
~ SENECA
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
~ MARCUS AURELIUS
In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.
~ SALLUST
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
~ SENECA
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.
~ EURIPIDES
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
~ BOETHIUS
On the occasion of every accident that befalls you ... inquire what power you have for turning it to use.
~ EPICTETUS
Time bears away all things
~ VIRGIL
Human misery must somewhere have a stop. There is no wind that always blows a storm.
~ EURIPIDES
We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
~ AESOP
Who except the gods can live time through forever without any pain?
~ AESCHYLUS
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs. Therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity or undue depression in adversity.
~ ISOCRATES
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have been dormant.
~ HORACE
It is difficulties that show what men are.
~ EPICTETUS
Yield thou not to adversity, but press on the more bravely.
~ VIRGIL
If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest. If there were no winter, there would be no summer.
~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
Fire is the test of gold, adversity of strong men.
~ SENECA
Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
~ CICERO
In prosperity friends do not leave you unless it's desired, whereas in adversity they stay away of their own accord.
~ DEMETRIUS
From their errors and mistakes, the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
~ PLUTARCH
The good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
~ SENECA
With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.
~ PLINY THE ELDER
Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.
~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS
It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.
~ SOPHOCLES
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.ARISTOTLE
~ ARISTOTLE
ART AND ARTISTS
Art is in love with luck, and luck with art.
~ AGATHON
All art is but imitation of nature.
~ SENECA THE ELDER
As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame? He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
~ PLATO
To be instructed in the arts softens the manners and makes men gentle.
~ OVID
That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.
~ SENECA
Poverty is the discoverer of all the arts.
~ APULEIUS
Art is man's refuge from adversity.
~ MENANDER
A picture is a poem without words.
~ HORACE
The aim of art is not the outward appearance of things but their inner significance.
~ ARISTOTLE
BEAUTY
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
~ ARISTOTLE
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
~ SOCRATES
When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of her beauty.
~ GREGORY I, THE GREAT
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend upon simplicity.
~ PLATO
Judgment of beauty can err, what with the wine and the dark.
~ OVID
Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
~ MARCUS AURELIUS
I know a man who, when he saw a woman of striking beauty, praised the Creator for her. The sight of her lit within him the love of God.
~ SAINT JOHN CLIMACUS
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God. But that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
~ SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
I pray, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
~ SOCRATES
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon also be beautiful.
~ SAPPHO OF LESBOS
Beauty is a gift of God.ARISTOTLE
~ ARISTOTLE
Nothing's beautiful from every point of view.
~ HORACE
When the candles are out, all women are fair.
~ PLUTARCH
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES
It does not matter how many books you have, but whether they are good or not. ~ SENECA
SENECA
The book you are reading has some good things, some indifferent, and many bad. There's no other way, Avitus, to make a book.
~ MARTIAL
Books are ... a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions at night, in travelling, in the country.
~ CICERO
Take up and read, take up and read!
~ SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
(Alexander the Great) was naturally a great lover of all kinds of learning and reading ... he constantly laid Homer's Iliad ... with his dagger under his pillow, declaring that he esteemed it a perfect portable treasure of all military virtue and knowledge.
~ PLUTARCH
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writing, so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.
~ SOCRATES
He (Pliny the Elder) used to say that "no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it."
~ PLINY THE YOUNGER
A room without books is as a body without a soul.
~ CICERO
Books have their own destiny.
~ TERENTIANUS MAURUS
CONTENTMENT
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not, but remember that what you have now was once among the things only hoped for.
~ EPICURUS
Well-being is attained little by little, and is no small thing itself.
~ ZENO OF CITIUM
Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.AESOP
~ AESOP
The sixth step of humility is to be content in all things. We are to be content with the meanest and worst of everything. In all things we must be mindful of our own lowliness, considering ourselves to be lowly and meek, knowing that though we have nothing in this life, the Lord is always present with us.
~ SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA
The best of blessings: a contented mind.
~ HORACE
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.
~ EPICTETUS
Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.
~ MARCUS AURELIUS
COURAGE
Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man's eyes.
~ EURIPIDES
Courage makes men perform noble acts in the midst of danger according to the dictates of the law and in submission to it; the contrary is cowardice.
~ ARISTOTLE
Fortune helps the brave.
~ VIRGIL
He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.
~ HERODOTUS
Courage in danger is half the battle.
~ PLAUTUS
In times of stress be bold and valiant.
~ HOMER
Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear.
~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Fortune and love favor the brave.
~ OVID
Let us be brave in the face of adversity.SENECA
~ SENECA
Blessings on your young courage, boy. That's the way to the stars.
~ VIRGIL
He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright.
~ PLUTARCH
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.AESOP
~ AESOP
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity!
~ HORACE
Courage is to take hard knocks like a man when occasion calls.
~ PLAUTUS
Happy the man who ventures boldly to defend what he holds dear.
~ OVID
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
~ SENECA
To persevere, trusting in what he hopes he has, is courage. The coward despairs.
~ EURIPIDES
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
~ SENECA
Nothing is as valuable to a man as courage.
~ TERENCE
Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
~ ARISTOTLE
Just as one man's body is naturally stronger than another's for labor, so one man's soul is naturally braver than another's in danger.
~ SOCRATES
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
~ THUCYDIDES
God himself favors the brave.
~ OVID
Courage is what preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children.
Courage comprises all things. ~ PLAUTUS
PLAUTUS
Being a man, ne'er ask the gods for a life set free from grief, but ask for courage that endureth long.
MENANDER
Courage easily finds its own eloquence.
~ PLAUTUS
Courage is a kind of salvation.
~ PLATO
Courage is the virtue that champions the cause of right.
~ CICERO
DEATH
When a man dies, all his glory among men dies also.
~ STESICHORUS
Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
~ SIMONIDES OF CEOS (epitaph)
It is enough to have perished once.
~ VIRGIL
Not lost, but gone before.
~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS
A dead man cannot bite.
~ PLUTARCH
The fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
~ PLATO
That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.
~ SENECA
What is death at most? It is a journey for a season, a sleep longer than usual. If thou fearest death, thou shouldest also fear sleep.
~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
It is God's law, that as things rose so they should fall, as they waxed so should grow old, the strong become weak, and the great become little, and when they become weak and little, they end.
~ SAINT CYPRIAN
By the death of One the world was redeemed ... We prove by this divine example that death alone found immortality and that death redeemed itself.
~ SAINT AMBROSE
And as for death, if there be any gods, it is no grievous thing to leave the society of men. The gods will do thee no hurt, thou mayest be sure. But if it be so that there be no gods, or that they take no care of the world, why should I desire to live in a world void of gods and of all divine providence?
~ MARCUS AURELIUS
The life of the dead consists in being present in the minds of the living.
~ CICERO
The house of mourning teaches charity and wisdom.
~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
The act of dying is also one of the acts of life.
~ MARCUS AURELIUS
Whom the gods love dies young.
~ MENANDER
If I err in my belief that the souls of men are immortal, I err gladly and do not wish to lose so delightful an error.
~ CICERO
These passions of soul, these conflicts so fierce, will cease, and be repressed by the casting of a little dust.
~ VIRGIL
Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth: no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
~ SOCRATES
If fame comes after death, I'm in no hurry for it.
~ MARTIAL
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE BOOK OF ANCIENT WISDOM by BILL BRADFIELD. Copyright © 2005 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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