The Book of Ancient Wisdom: Over 500 Inspiring Quotations from the Greeks and Romans

by Bill Bradfield (Editor)

Overview

"Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable."—Cicero
"Nowadays, flattery wins friends, truth hatred."—Terence
Memorable quotes from Socrates, Euripides, Plutarch, Sophocles, Marcus Aurelius, and other ancient poets, playwrights, statesmen, and philosophers fill the pages of this handy collection of wit and wisdom. Their subjects touch all aspects of human life: adversity, contentment, courage, death, generosity, greed, love, procrastination, self-discipline, war, and peace. An appendix provides brief biographies of the contributors and a pronunciation guide to the Greek and Roman names.
A handy aid for speech writers and public speakers, these thoughtful, sagacious words of advice from the best minds of bygone civilizations still ring true in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486145839
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	02/09/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	307,858
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT WISDOM

Over 500 Inspiring Quotations from the Greeks and Romans

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By BILL BRADFIELD

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14583-9

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CHAPTER 1

ADVERSITY

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

~ SOCRATES

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

~ HORACE

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely. The fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.

~ SENECA

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

~ MARCUS AURELIUS

In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.

~ SALLUST

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

~ SENECA

There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.

~ EURIPIDES

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.

~ BOETHIUS

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you ... inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

~ EPICTETUS

Time bears away all things

~ VIRGIL

Human misery must somewhere have a stop. There is no wind that always blows a storm.

~ EURIPIDES

We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.

~ AESOP

Who except the gods can live time through forever without any pain?

~ AESCHYLUS

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs. Therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity or undue depression in adversity.

~ ISOCRATES

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have been dormant.

~ HORACE

It is difficulties that show what men are.

~ EPICTETUS

Yield thou not to adversity, but press on the more bravely.

~ VIRGIL

If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest. If there were no winter, there would be no summer.

~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Fire is the test of gold, adversity of strong men.

~ SENECA

Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

~ CICERO

In prosperity friends do not leave you unless it's desired, whereas in adversity they stay away of their own accord.

~ DEMETRIUS

From their errors and mistakes, the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

~ PLUTARCH

The good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

~ SENECA

With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

~ PLINY THE ELDER

Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.

~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS

It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.

~ SOPHOCLES

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.ARISTOTLE

~ ARISTOTLE

ART AND ARTISTS

Art is in love with luck, and luck with art.

~ AGATHON

All art is but imitation of nature.

~ SENECA THE ELDER

As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame? He whom love touches not walks in darkness.

~ PLATO

To be instructed in the arts softens the manners and makes men gentle.

~ OVID

That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.

~ SENECA

Poverty is the discoverer of all the arts.

~ APULEIUS

Art is man's refuge from adversity.

~ MENANDER

A picture is a poem without words.

~ HORACE

The aim of art is not the outward appearance of things but their inner significance.

~ ARISTOTLE

BEAUTY

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

~ ARISTOTLE

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

~ SOCRATES

When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of her beauty.

~ GREGORY I, THE GREAT

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend upon simplicity.

~ PLATO

Judgment of beauty can err, what with the wine and the dark.

~ OVID

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

~ MARCUS AURELIUS

I know a man who, when he saw a woman of striking beauty, praised the Creator for her. The sight of her lit within him the love of God.

~ SAINT JOHN CLIMACUS

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God. But that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

~ SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

I pray, O God, that I may be beautiful within.

~ SOCRATES

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon also be beautiful.

~ SAPPHO OF LESBOS

Beauty is a gift of God.ARISTOTLE

~ ARISTOTLE

Nothing's beautiful from every point of view.

~ HORACE

When the candles are out, all women are fair.

~ PLUTARCH

BOOKS AND LIBRARIES

It does not matter how many books you have, but whether they are good or not. ~ SENECA

SENECA

The book you are reading has some good things, some indifferent, and many bad. There's no other way, Avitus, to make a book.

~ MARTIAL

Books are ... a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions at night, in travelling, in the country.

~ CICERO

Take up and read, take up and read!

~ SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

(Alexander the Great) was naturally a great lover of all kinds of learning and reading ... he constantly laid Homer's Iliad ... with his dagger under his pillow, declaring that he esteemed it a perfect portable treasure of all military virtue and knowledge.

~ PLUTARCH

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writing, so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

~ SOCRATES

He (Pliny the Elder) used to say that "no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it."

~ PLINY THE YOUNGER

A room without books is as a body without a soul.

~ CICERO

Books have their own destiny.

~ TERENTIANUS MAURUS

CONTENTMENT

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not, but remember that what you have now was once among the things only hoped for.

~ EPICURUS

Well-being is attained little by little, and is no small thing itself.

~ ZENO OF CITIUM

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.AESOP

~ AESOP

The sixth step of humility is to be content in all things. We are to be content with the meanest and worst of everything. In all things we must be mindful of our own lowliness, considering ourselves to be lowly and meek, knowing that though we have nothing in this life, the Lord is always present with us.

~ SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA

The best of blessings: a contented mind.

~ HORACE

He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.

~ EPICTETUS

Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

~ MARCUS AURELIUS

COURAGE

Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man's eyes.

~ EURIPIDES

Courage makes men perform noble acts in the midst of danger according to the dictates of the law and in submission to it; the contrary is cowardice.

~ ARISTOTLE

Fortune helps the brave.

~ VIRGIL

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

~ HERODOTUS

Courage in danger is half the battle.

~ PLAUTUS

In times of stress be bold and valiant.

~ HOMER

Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear.

~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Fortune and love favor the brave.

~ OVID

Let us be brave in the face of adversity.SENECA

~ SENECA

Blessings on your young courage, boy. That's the way to the stars.

~ VIRGIL

He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright.

~ PLUTARCH

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.AESOP

~ AESOP

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity!

~ HORACE

Courage is to take hard knocks like a man when occasion calls.

~ PLAUTUS

Happy the man who ventures boldly to defend what he holds dear.

~ OVID

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

~ SENECA

To persevere, trusting in what he hopes he has, is courage. The coward despairs.

~ EURIPIDES

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

~ SENECA

Nothing is as valuable to a man as courage.

~ TERENCE

Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.

~ ARISTOTLE

Just as one man's body is naturally stronger than another's for labor, so one man's soul is naturally braver than another's in danger.

~ SOCRATES

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

~ THUCYDIDES

God himself favors the brave.

~ OVID

Courage is what preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children.

Courage comprises all things. ~ PLAUTUS

PLAUTUS

Being a man, ne'er ask the gods for a life set free from grief, but ask for courage that endureth long.

MENANDER

Courage easily finds its own eloquence.

~ PLAUTUS

Courage is a kind of salvation.

~ PLATO

Courage is the virtue that champions the cause of right.

~ CICERO

DEATH

When a man dies, all his glory among men dies also.

~ STESICHORUS

Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

~ SIMONIDES OF CEOS (epitaph)

It is enough to have perished once.

~ VIRGIL

Not lost, but gone before.

~ PUBLILIUS SYRUS

A dead man cannot bite.

~ PLUTARCH

The fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

~ PLATO

That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.

~ SENECA

What is death at most? It is a journey for a season, a sleep longer than usual. If thou fearest death, thou shouldest also fear sleep.

~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

It is God's law, that as things rose so they should fall, as they waxed so should grow old, the strong become weak, and the great become little, and when they become weak and little, they end.

~ SAINT CYPRIAN

By the death of One the world was redeemed ... We prove by this divine example that death alone found immortality and that death redeemed itself.

~ SAINT AMBROSE

And as for death, if there be any gods, it is no grievous thing to leave the society of men. The gods will do thee no hurt, thou mayest be sure. But if it be so that there be no gods, or that they take no care of the world, why should I desire to live in a world void of gods and of all divine providence?

~ MARCUS AURELIUS

The life of the dead consists in being present in the minds of the living.

~ CICERO

The house of mourning teaches charity and wisdom.

~ SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

The act of dying is also one of the acts of life.

~ MARCUS AURELIUS

Whom the gods love dies young.

~ MENANDER

If I err in my belief that the souls of men are immortal, I err gladly and do not wish to lose so delightful an error.

~ CICERO

These passions of soul, these conflicts so fierce, will cease, and be repressed by the casting of a little dust.

~ VIRGIL

Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth: no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

~ SOCRATES

If fame comes after death, I'm in no hurry for it.

~ MARTIAL

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from THE BOOK OF ANCIENT WISDOM by BILL BRADFIELD. Copyright © 2005 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

"Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable."—Cicero
"Nowadays, flattery wins friends, truth hatred."—Terence
Memorable quotes from Socrates, Euripides, Plutarch, Sophocles, Marcus Aurelius, and other ancient poets, playwrights, statesmen, and philosophers fill the pages of this handy collection of wit and wisdom. Their subjects touch all aspects of human life: adversity, contentment, courage, death, generosity, greed, love, procrastination, self-discipline, war, and peace. An appendix provides brief biographies of the contributors and a pronunciation guide to the Greek and Roman names.
A handy aid for speech writers and public speakers, these thoughtful, sagacious words of advice from the best minds of bygone civilizations still ring true in the twenty-first century.
Original Dover (2005) publication.