From Ethics to Happiness. From Democracy to Music, Arts and Philosophy. From Logic to Science. Ancient Greeks thought, discussed and wrote about a lot of our modern civilizations' ideas and problems which seem to be really important even after 2,500 years! Below, you can read quotes about the meaning and the essence of the word’s knowledge and wisdom, an understanding of what intelligence is, the presentation of love and friendship, the definition of happiness and the importance of being grateful. Furthermore, you will also read about politics, the issue of poverty and more philosophical ideas and thoughts.
Here is a list of precious diachronic life lessons which will make you think, become more self-aware and help you become a more conscious being. Enjoy the list, share and add your ideas in the comment section.
Pythagoras (570-495 BCE)
As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.”
“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.”
Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE)
“Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses.”
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”
“Many much-learned men have no intelligence.”
Socrates (c. 469-399 BCE)
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412-323 BCE)
“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.”
“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”
“Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.”
Epicurus (c. 341-270 BCE)
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
“Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”
“Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”
Heraclitus (535-475 BCE)
“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”
Pericles (c. 495-429 BCE)
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ”
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
“Those who can truly be accounted brave are those who best know the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then go out, undeterred, to meet what is to come.”
Epictetus (c. 55—135 AD)
“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
Via Thinking Humanity re-posted under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
