Jia Yi

Jia Yi (c. 201-169 BCE)

"All things alter and change;
Never a moment of ceasing.
Revolving, whirling, and rolling away;
Driven far off and returning again."

• Excerpt of a Jia Yi poem (c. 174 BCE), included in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji, 84) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain, c. 1835-1910)

"Although my book is intended  mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes ingaged in"

• From the preface of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Tain (originally published 1876). 

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Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

"Wisdom produces happiness, not as medical science produces health, but as health does. For wisdom is a part of virtue as a whole, and makes a person happy by his possession and exercise of it."

•  From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book VI, section xii, Bekker page 1144a) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

"I sometimes think that good readers are poets as singular, and as awesome, as great authors themselves."

• From Jorge Luis Borges' preface to A Universal History of Iniquity (originally published c. 1935), translated by Andrew Hurley in Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions (Penguin Classics, 1998).

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George Orwell

George Orwell (c. 1903-1950)

"The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degredation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency."

• From Homage to Catalonia (Chapter 12) written by George Orwell and edited by Adam Hochschild and Lionel Trilling (Mariner Books, 1969).

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Tacitus

Tacitus (c. 56-117+)

"Long, I pray, may foreign peoples persist, if not in loving us, at least in hating one another; for the imperial destiny drives hard, and fortune now has no better gift than the discord of our foes."

• Germania (section 33) by Tacitus, translated by Harold Mattingly and edited by J. B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009. 

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Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (sayings recorded between the 6th and 3rd centuries BCE)

" In War,
     Numbers
     Are not the issue.
It is a question of
     Not attacking
     Too agressively.
     Concentrate your strength,
     Assess your enemy,
     And win the confidence of your men:
     That is enough."

• Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Chapter nine), translated by John Minford (Penguin Classics edition, 2009).

  


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Brynhild (Saga of the Volsungs)

Brynhild (from the Saga of the Volsungs)

"Endure with patience and you will win long-lasting praise."

• From The Saga of the Volsungs (chapter 22), by an anonymous 13th century Icelander, translated by Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics, 1990, 1999).

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The Didache

The Didache (anonymously-written Christian text, created around year 100)

"Do not hate anybody; but reprove some, pray for others, and still others love more than your own life."

• The anonymously-written Didache ("The Teaching," c. 100 CE), chapter 2, section 7, translated by Cyril C. Richardson (1970) in After The New Testament: A Reader In Early Christianity, edited by Bart D. Ehrman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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Grettir

Grettir the Strong (said to have lived c. 996-1031)

"Arriving at the well is one thing; drinking is another."

• A saying attributed to Grettir, in the anonymously written Grettir's Saga (c. 14th century), chapter 57, translated by Jesse Byock (Oxford World's Classics, 2009).

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Xenophon

Xenophon (c. 420-350 BCE)

"Remembering good rather than bad is the right thing to do; it is fair and moral, and it gives pleasure to all concerned."

• Anabasis Kyrou (Upcountry March of Cyrus, Book V, section 8) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)

"Fields have their eyes, and forests have their ears.
It's well to be upon one's guard, I mean,
Since all day long we meet the unforseen."

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

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Mencius

Mencius (4th century BCE)

"Practice benevolent government and the people will be sure to love their superiors and die for them."

• From The Mencius (Book I, Part B, section 12) by Mencius, translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 2003).

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Egil Skallagrimsson

Egil Skallagrimsson (10th century)

"I have wielded a blood-stained sword
and howling spear; the bird
of carrion followed me
when the Vikings pressed forth;
In fury we fought battles,
fire swept through men's homes,
we made bloody bodies
slump dead by city gates."

• Egil's Saga (chapter 48, poem 14), recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson, translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition. 

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Confucius

Confucius (approximately 551-479 BCE)

"A gentleman takes as much trouble to discover what is right as lesser men take to discover what will pay."

• From The Analects of Confucius (Book IV, section 16) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989). 

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Livy

Livy (c. 59 BCE - 17 CE)

"There is a magnetic power in evil; like draws toward like."

• The History of Rome (Book 1, section 46) by Livy, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey Monmouth (flourished c. 12th century)

"Whoever tries to steal from another the things which are that other's may justly lose to the other whom he is attacking the things which belong to him personally."

• Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain (ix.17), completed in 1136 CE, translated from Latin into English by Lewis Thorpe (Penguin Classics, 1966).

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Xenophon

Xenophon (lived approximately 420-350 BCE)

"If you want to survive, do your best to win, because it is winners who kill and the losers who die; and if you want to get rich, do your best to conquer, because victors not only keep their own belongings, but also take what belongs to the losers."

•  Anabasis Kyrou (Upcountry March of Cyrus, Book III, section 2) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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Thucydides

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

"Hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book V, section 103) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

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The Buddha

The Buddha (c. 6th-5th century BCE)

"The person who is harmonious amid the hostile,
peaceful amid the violent,
free from grasping amid the greedy,
that one I call superior."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 26), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004. 

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General Curtis E. LeMay

General Curtis LeMay (c. 1906-1990)

"The best way to lead a mission was to stand between the pilot and co-pilot. You got a good view there, and had no immediate manual task - nothing to do in the aircraft you were flying in - nothing to do except control the entire formation."

• Mission with LeMay: My Story, by Curtis LeMay and MacKinlay Kantor (Doubleday & Company, 1965).  

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Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (sayings recorded between the 6th and 3rd centuries BCE)

"If the enemy opens a door,
     Rush in.
     Seize what he holds dear,
     And secretly contrive
     An encounter."

• Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Chapter Eleven), translated by John Minford (Penguin Classics edition, 2009).

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