When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.
Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.
Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man.
Time is the image of eternity.
Socrates said, "Those who want fewest things are nearest to the gods.
Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.
That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.
Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.
He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing.
Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a citizen of the world."
Bury me on my face," said Diogenes; and when he was asked why, he replied, "Because in a little while everything will be turned upside down.
Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue.
Aristippus said that a wise man's country was the world.
Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.
The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.
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.
Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, "The descent to Hades is the same from every place.
A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.
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.
Euripides says,-Who knows but that this life is really death,And whether death is not what men call life?
