Quotes
Quotes about Men
Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."
Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."
Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
When the candles are out all women are fair.
Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.
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.
Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."
For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
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.
Difficulties are things that show what men are.
Be not hurried away by excitement, but say, "Semblance, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you."
There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.
Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire of glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.
Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.
Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments.
As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
Think on this doctrine,--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.
Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.
All things are the same,--familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.
Alcæus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:--
'T is money makes the man; and he who's none
Is counted neither good nor honourable.
He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present.
Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.
Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words; but opportunity will prevail.
