Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,--there, if one must speak out, the real man.
Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors.
There are many marvellous stories told of Pherecydes. For it is said that he was walking along the seashore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before his eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one.
Bion used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; he could go there with his eyes shut.
Asked what he gained from philosophy, he answered, "To do without being commanded what others do from fear of the laws."
One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.
Plato having defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, "This is Plato's man." On which account this addition was made to the definition,--"With broad at nails."
One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.
Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,
One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
The wretched souls of those who lived
Without or praise or blame.
As when, O lady mine!
With chiselled touch
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould.
The more the marble wastes,
The more the statue grows.
Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston.
The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fair words.
It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, ... or internal difficulties.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould.... The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),
Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;
Who loving novels, full of affectation,
Receive the manners of each other nation.
With tooth and nail.
Or almost like a spider, who, confin'd
In her web's centre, shakt with every winde,
Moves in an instant if the buzzing flie
Stir but a string of her lawn canapie.
