Quote collection
467 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Remember that you are in actor in a play of such a kind that the author chooses...For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part belongs to another."
"In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught;but in life there are many things to draw us aside."
"The soul that companies with virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught, sweet, rich and generous of its store, that injures not, neither destroys."
"When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself."
"It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth."
"Do not so much be ashamed of that disgrace which proceeds from men's opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth."
"Think of God oftener than you breathe."
"The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will."
"The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man."
"What disturbs people, these are not things, but the judgments relating to things"
"The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions."
"What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction."
"There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty."
"Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's."
"Bid a singer in a chorus, Know Thyself; and will he not turn for the knowledge to the others, his fellows in the chorus, and to his harmony with them?"
"Do not give sentence in another tribunal till you have been yourself judged in the tribunal of Justice."
"Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects."
"It is not events that disturb the minds of men, but the view they take of them."
"Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak."
"If you would improve, submit to be considered wihout sense and foolish with respect to externals. Wish to be considered to know nothing; and if you shall seem to someone to be a person of importance, distrust yourself."