Quotations

Socrates
Greek philosopher: 469 – 399 BCE

“It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.”

Catullus
Roman poet: c84 – 54 BCE

“I hate and I love: why I do so you may well ask. I do not know, but I feel it happen and am in agony.”

Horace
Roman satirical poet: 65 – 8 BCE

“We are just statistics, born to consume resources.”

Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emperor: 121 – 180 CE

“Be content to seem what you really are.”

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”

“Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”

“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” 

“To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.”

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this , and you will find strength.”

“We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.”

“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.”

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