Cassius Dio

Cassius Dio (c. 163-235)

"Every man, naturally, has a high opinion of himself, and wishes to enjoy some benefit from the man who is in a position to grant it."

• From Cassius Dio's The Roman History (Book 52, chapter 12), translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Penguin Classics, 1987).

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Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu (6th Century BCE)

"He who tiptoes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk."

• From Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Book One, XXIV), translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963).

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Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430)

"There always have been and there always will be women who are just as spotless as they are beautiful."

• From The Book of the City of Ladies (Part II, chapter 41) by Christine de Pizan, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant (Penguin Classics, 1999).

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Tacitus

Tacitus (c. 56-117+)

"Important events are obscure. Some believe all manner of hearsay evidence; others twist truth into fiction; and both sorts of error are magnified by time."

• From The Annals of Imperial Rome (Chapter 5), by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant (Penguin Classics, 1996).

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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (c. 1709-1790)

"Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine."

• From Poor Richard's Almanac by Benjamin Franklin (Seven Treasures Publications, 2008).

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Sima Qian

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

"Only after the day of death will right and wrong at last be determined."

• From Sima Qian's letter to Ren An, in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji), by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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Plutarch

Plutarch (approx. 50-120)

"We may note that ambitious spirits do far more harm than good in a state, unless they can keep their aspirations within proper limits."

• On Sparta (Life of Lycurgus), excerpted from Plutarch's Parallel Lives, translated by Richard J. A. Talbert. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

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The Buddha

The Buddha (this saying written down in the 3rd century BCE)

"By oneself is damage done:
by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is damage not done:
by oneself is one purified.
Purity and impurity come from oneself.
No one can purify another."

• From The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 12), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Onund Treefoot (Grettir's Saga)

Onund Tree-Foot (semi-mythical Norwegian Viking and Icelandic settler said to live in the 9th century)

"Many would-be warriors
mouth off but fail to think.
Your type sadly lacks practice
in fighting it out to the end."

• Spoken by the character, Onund Tree-Foot, in the anonymously written Grettir's Saga (c. 14th century), translated by Jesse Byock (Oxford World's Classics, 2009).

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Thucydides

Thucydides (Athenian general and historian, c. 460-400 BCE)

"Haste and anger are, to my mind, the two greatest obstacles to wise counsel - haste, that usually goes with folly, anger, that is the mark of primitive and narrow minds."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book III) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972). The quote comes from a speech that Thucydides wrote while in the character of Diodotus.

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Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

"In every situation one must guard especially against pleasure and pleasant things, because we are not impartial judges of pleasure."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book II, chapter ix) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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The Malleus Maleficarum

Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger (published 1487)

"It is to be said that the soul is thought to reside in the centre of the heart, in which it communicates with all the members by an outpouring of life."

• From The Malleus Maleficarum (Part II, Question I, Chapter IX) by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by Montague Summers (Dover Publications, 1971).

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Egil Skallagrimsson

Egil Skallagrimsson (semi-mythical Viking poet, c. 10th century)

"Drink every toast down,
though the rider of the waves
brings brimful horns often
to the shaper of verse.
I will leave no drop
of malt-sea, even if the maker
of sword-play brings me
horn until morning."

• Egil's Saga (recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson), translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

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Anna Komnene

Anna Komnene (c. 1083-1153)

"And this, I fancy, is the true definition of propriety: the due proportion of warm humanity and strict moral principle."

• From The Alexiad (Book III) by Anna Komnene, translated by E.R.A. Sewter, (Penguin Classics, 2009).

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Sima Qian

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

"Good advice is hard on the ears, but it profits the conduct just as good medicine, though bitter in the mouth, cures the sickness."

• From the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)

"There came a privy thief, they call him Death
Who kills us all round here, and in a breath
He speared him through the heart, he never stirred.
And then Death went his way without a word."

• From The Canterbury Tales (The Pardoner's Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).

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Cassius Dio

Cassius Dio (c. 163-235)

"It is human beings, not wild beasts whom you govern, and you will only make them truly well disposed towards you if you can convince them by every means and on every occasion consistently that you will wrong no man, either deliberately or unwillingly."

• From Cassius Dio's The Roman History (Book 55, chapter 19), translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Penguin Classics, 1987).

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Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1584-1645)

"An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit."

• From Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings, (Lord Majesty Productions, 2005 edition).

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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (c. 1706-1790)

"Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed."

• From Poor Richard's Almanac by Benjamin Franklin (Seven Treasures Publications, 2008).

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Thucydides

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

"To pay back a just debt by acting unjustly is more disgraceful than not to pay at all."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book III) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972). The quote comes from a speech that Thucydides wrote while in the character of a Theban diplomat.

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Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

"Virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book II, chapter vi) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (c. 1809-1849)

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

• From Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" in Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Works (JKL Classics, 2017).

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Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (Sayings recorded between 6th-3rd century BCE)

"Anger
     Can turn to
     Pleasure;
Spite
     Can turn to 
     Joy.
But a nation destroyed
     Cannot be
     Put back together again;
     A dead man
     Canot be brought back to life."

• From Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Chapter Twelve), translated by John Minford (Penguin Classics edition). 

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