The Buddha

The Buddha (6th-5th century BCE)

"Irrigators guide the water.
Fletchers shape the arrow shaft.
Carpenters shape wood.
The virtuous tame themselves."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 10), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Plutarch

Plutarch (c. 50-120)

"Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to practise; and influences the mind and character not by a mere imitation which we look at, but, by the statement of the fact, creates a moral purpose which we form."

• Quote by Plutarch in Parallel Lives (Life of Pericles). The edition used here is from the Harvard Classics series, edited by Charles W. Eliot, and published by P. F. Collier & Son (1909, 1937).

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Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1313-1375)

"Do as you would be done by, that's my motto."

• The Decameron (Second Day, Ninth Story) by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by G. H. McWilliam. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

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Mencius

Mencius (c. 372-289 BCE)

"If the services of the common people were used with a view to sparing them hardship, they would not complain even when hard driven."

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

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Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"Owing to the helplessness and subservience of democracy in the hands of ambitious and commanding men, added to the facilities of modern locomotion and propaganda, many communities have been plunged back into a state of insecurity hitherto only associated with barbarism."

• From Sir Winston Churchill's "Europe's Peace" (February 5, 1937), in Winston S. Churchill Step By Step: Political Writings 1936-1939 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

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Friedrich Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)

"Eternal humanity is unweariedly busy in creating and in representing itself in the most varied ways in the provisional appearance of finite life."

• From Friedrich Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (second speech), translated by Richard Crouter (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

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Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430)

"Anyone who wanted could cite plentiful examples of exceptional women in the world today: it's simply a matter of looking for them."

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

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Thucydides

Thucydides (460-400 BCE)

"There is no need to talk about what happened long ago: there our evidence would be that of hearsay rather than that of eyewitnesses amongst our audience."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book I, section 73) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

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Confucius

Confucius (551-479 BCE)

"In old days men studied for the sake of self-improvement; nowadays men study in order to impress other people."

• The Analects of Confucius (Book XIV, section 25) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989).

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Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

"The wish for friendship develops rapidly, but friendship does not."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book VIII, section 3, Bekker page 1156b) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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The Buddha

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

"Darkened is this world.
 Few have insight here.
 Like a bird set free from a net,
 few go to a higher world."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 13), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Mo Tzu

Mo Tzu (c. 5th century BCE)

"If a government is rich in worthy men, then the administration will be characterized by weight and substance; but if it is poor in such men, then the administration will be a paltry affair."

• From the Basic Writings of Mo Tzu (Honoring the Worthy, part I, section 8), translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1963).

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Odin (from Hávamál)

Odin (Norse god)

"Where you recognize evil, call it evil,
and give no truce to your enemies."

• This quote comes from stanza 127 of Hávamál (Sayings of the High One), an old poem which was preserved in the 13th-century Poetic Edda which was produced anonymously in Iceland. The translation is by Carolyne Larrington (Oxford University Press, 2014).

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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (c. 1706-1790)

"The noblest question in the world is
What good may I do in it?"

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

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Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

"Utility is an impermanent thing: it changes according to circumstances."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book VIII, section 3, Bekker page 1156a) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"The hate-culture continues, fostered by printing-press and broadcast — the very instruments, in fact, which philosophers might have hoped would liberate mankind from such perils."

• From Sir Winston Churchill's "Europe's Peace" (February 5, 1937), in Winston S. Churchill Step By Step: Political Writings 1936-1939 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

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The Buddha

The Buddha (6th-5th century BCE)

"The night is long for the wide awake.
The mile is long for the weary.
The round of birth and death is long
for childish people, who do not know the good way."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 5), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Thucydides

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

"One cannot regulate fortune to fit in with what one has decided one wants to happen."

• From a speech attributed to the Syracusan general, Hermocrates, in the History of the Peloponnesian War (Book VI, section 78) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

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Confucius

Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE)

"To lead into battle a people that has not first been instructed is to betray them."

• The Analects of Confucius (Book XIII, section 29/30) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989). 

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Odin (from Hávamál)

Odin (from Hávamal)

"The mind alone knows what lies near the heart,
he is alone with his spirit;
no sickness is worse for the sensible man
than to find no contentment in anything."

• This quote comes from stanza 95 of Hávamál (Sayings of the High One), an old poem which was preserved in the 13th-century Poetic Edda produced anonymously in Iceland. The translation is by Carolyne Larrington (Oxford University Press, 2014).

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