When Dionysius the Renegade asked, “Why am I the only pupil you do not correct?” the reply was, “Because I mistrust you.” The reply was...

Education, according to him, is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, and ornament to the rich....

Certain parents were sacrificing to the gods, that a son might be born to them. “But,” said he, “do you not sacrifice to ensure what...

The stomach he called livelihood’s Charybdis. i.e. a whirlpool engulfing a man’s livelihood. Diogenes. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of...

The love of money he declared to be mother-city of all evils. Diogenes. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers Books 6-10. Loeb...

The philosopher Diogenes “lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, “I am looking for a man.”” Diogenes. Diogenes...

Failure to stop Hitler sooner, saying: “Of this I am certain, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find...

“Anger is a waste of energy,” Churchill said. “Steam which is used to blow off a safety valve would be better used to drive the engine.”...

Churchill adored his parents, but they paid him little attention. “It is said that famous men are usually the product of unhappy...

Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson in an essay on friendship, C. S. Lewis noted that Emerson once observed, Do you love me? Actually means Do...

For though all persons are equally subject to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage she cannot deny, which is this,...

Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord. Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives:...

Phocion, therefore, answered King Antipater, who sought his approbation of some unworthy action, “I cannot be your flatterer, and your...

Men of fine genius are readily reminded of things, but those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best. Plutarch....

Zeno said a philosopher should never speak till his words had been steeped in meaning Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives: The Lives of the Noble...

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place...

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. Suetonius, The Lives of the...

Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chretus, he expelled them from Rome. Suetonius, The Lives of the...

“If so and so criticizes me I shall take care to render an account of my acts and words; if he persists, our enmity will be mutual.”...

After that, calling in his friends and asking whether it seemed to them that he had played the comedy of life fitly, he added the tag:...

Augustus to Tiberius: My dear Tiberius, do not be carried away by the ardour of youth in this matter, or take it too much to heart that...

“I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show any human being, let...

It must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on...

Pliny the Younger, "Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive, of our actions." Cicero. Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero With His...