Quotes
Quotes about Age
Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage."
Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
If what the philosophers say be true,--that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,--so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.
The images of twenty of the most illustrious families--the Manlii, the Quinctii, and other names of equal splendour--were carried before it [the bier of Junia]. Those of Brutus and Cassius were not displayed; but for that very reason they shone with pre-eminent lustre.
The gods looked with favour on superior courage.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.
"Let thine occupations be few," saith the sage, "if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life."
Remember that to change thy mind and to follow him that sets thee right, is to be none the less the free agent that thou wast before.
He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.
Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors.
Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions;... that laws were like cobwebs,--for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.
Time is the image of eternity.
Another of his sayings was, that education was the best viaticum of old age.
Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, "Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue."
Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty."
On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a wine-cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very small for its age," said Gnathæna.
She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, ... or internal difficulties.
Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"
Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
I, who have so much and so universally adored this [greek], "excellent mediocrity," of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?
The world's a stage where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence
Do act the parts.
Or savage beasts upon a thousand hils.
Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours
Should not be numbered by years, daies, and hours.
I take the world to be but as a stage,
Where net-maskt men do play their personage.
