“In grief’s no help.”

Sappho 600 BC      Woman, believed in soulmate, epithalamia-wedding songs
“I’d not give her away for Lydia’s wide sway nor lands men long to see.”

“Some say calvary corps, some infantry, some, again, will maintain that swift oars of our fleet are the finest sight on the dark earth: but I say whatever one loves, is.”

Pindar 500 BC     Greatest lyric poet, sang for athletes, arete-physical/spiritual excellence
“But the after-days are the witnesses that be wisest.”

“The choice of the flower of chivalry ever is plucked by his hand.”

Euclid 300 BC      Math=beauty, universal
“A point is that which has no part.”

“There is no royal road to geometry.”

Hippocrates 450 BC      No surgery unless have to, nature can heal!, common sense
“Physicians are many in title but very few in reality.”

“With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my art.”

Thucydides 425 BC      Accuracy and seriousness, historian
“A man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his condition.”

“For we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.”

“We have a peculiar power of thinking before we act and of acting too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.”

Herodotus 450 BC      Father of history...father of lies, storyteller

Homer     Blind poet, poems originally sung; not sure if author, very little known about
Iliad
“A man buy both tripods and horses if he wants them, but when his life has left him it can neither be bought nor harried back again.”

“Treat people more righteously in the future; it is no disgrace even to a king that he should make amends if he was wrong in the first instance.”

“Son, Minerva and Juno will make you strong if they choose, but check your high temper, for the better part is in goodwill. Eschew vain quarreling, and the Achaeans old and young will respect you more for doing so.”     

“The gods will not give us everything at one and the same time.”
“If he that rules Olympus fulfill it not here and now, he will yet fulfill it hereafter.”

“Let it be a case then of give and take”

“‘Goddess,’ answered Achilles, ‘however angry a man may be, he must do as you two command him. This will be best, for the gods ever hear the prayers of him who has obeyed him.’”

Odyssey
“There is no accounting for luck; Jove gives prosperity to rich and poor as he chooses, you must take what he has seen fit to send you, and make the best of it.”

“I would rather be a pain servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.”

“Thus then was the will of Jove accomplished.”

“People always applaud the latest song most warmly.”

Aeschylus 500 BC    Father of drama, introduced second actor
Prometheus Bound
“A wise mans folly forfeits dignity.”

“Learn the goal of all your journeys.”

“Fate fulfills all in time; but it is not ordained that these events shall yet reach such an end.”

“Time as he grows older teaches everything.”

The Persians                                                       
“That man is mortal, and must learn to curb his pride. For bride will blossom; soon its ripening kernel is Infatuation; and its bitter harvest tears.”

“Yet, being mortal, we must endure grief when the gods send it.

“What mortal man can elude immortal guile? Where is he whose nimble leap lightly clears the enclosing net? Smooth Delusion’s flattering smile leads but where her trap is set.

The Suppliants
“Let wild youth not accomplish its wicked lust; let pride be quelled”

“When all goes well, when death no longer threatens, then flows forth payment of vows to the gods.”

Seven Against Thebes
“For he cares not to seem the bravest, but to be”

“And our barrier between life and death is no more than the width of a wall.”

Sophocles 500 BC    Themes include Choice v freewill and hubris. Added 3rd actor
Antigone
“When I’m dead I’ll know”

“Only he is damned who having sinned will not repent”

“A wise man is flexible, has much to learn without a loss of dignity. See the trees in flood time, how they bend along the torrent’s course, and how their twigs and branches do not snap, but stubborn trees are torn up roots and all.”

“No man can tell what has come stealthily creeping over his life until too late”

“I can go to meet my end without a trace of pain.”

“Creation is a marvel and man its masterpiece.”

“Money topples cities to the ground, seduces men away from happy homes, corrupts the honest heart to shifty ways, makes men crooked connoisseurs of vice.”

“Greed of gain has often made men fools.”

Odipus Rex                                      
“Certainly, but show me a man who can force the hand of heaven.”

“The pack of sure footed Fates will track him down.”
If a single path of fate exists there is no hiding it. Whatever will be will be.

“How can a man have scruples when it’s only chance that’s king? There’s nothing certain, nothing pre-ordained. We should live as carefree as we may.”

Odipus of Callinus

“Do not say you reverence heaven, then do nothing but ignore what heaven says.”

“I have no right to judge before I know.”

“Only to the gods is given not to age or die, all else disrupts through all disposing time.”

Eurpides 500 BC    Outcast, rebel. How did good 1st come about? Source of goodness
Electra
“Even though I am poor I shall not show a mean disposition.”

“I may lose, but I shall never give my enemies the satisfaction of outraging my person.”

“Think first of the Gods, Electra, the authors of this happy event.”

Media
“I ask not greatness but a safe old age. Moderation! Firstly, the very name of it is excellent; to practice it is easily the best thing for mortals. Excess avails to no good purpose for men”

“We are mortals and must endure calamity with patience.

“This is the gods’ doing, and mine.”

“I might have made an elaborate rebuttal of the speech you have made, but Zeus the Father knows what you received at my hands and what you have done.”

Thales 600BC
happy man is healthy in body and readily teachable. rational, not mythological. Don’t beautify face, beautify soul.
“To bring surity brings ruin”
“What is hard, to know thyself, what is easy, to give advise, what is God, that which has no beginning or end.”

Anaximander 600 BC
the origin of all things is boundless. there is no origin, no beginning or end. Thought man was came from fish, earth was cylinder, and Mediterranean sea was the center.

Anaximenes 500 BC
He was Anaximander’s pupil and continued his boundless theory. Thought boundlessness and soul were air.

Pythagoris 500 BC

All reality is mathematical and everything can be solved mathematically. Spiritual purity can be achieved through philosophy/thinking. Believed in metempsychosis, a.k.a. reincarnation. 10 is the best number, 10=1+2+3+4, perfect triangle in dot notation. Things composed of form not material. Body is a shell.

Anaxagoras 500-428 BC
Sensation of touch only felt by opposites. Mind is self-ruled and purest. Neglected possessions to devote himself to science. Thought everything began as 1 vortex then split in 2 into 1 hot and 1 dry, they collided and made earth. Basically big bang.

Empedocles 500 BC
Raced in Olympics. Love and strife are in eternal battle, strife rules majority. Worl in constant state of evolution. Nature.
“Already I have been a boy and a girl, a bush and a tree.”

Parminides 500 BC
Something can’t come from nothing, therefore nothing can’t exist. Matter wasn’t created and will never be destroyed. If you can think of something it is. Therefore you can think of something better until you reach the best, which always ends up at God-eternal one. Senses can deceive.

Heraclitus 535-475 BC
Disagrees with Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoris. Change is real. Had contempt for mankind. Drunkenness and sexual excessiveness hurt the soul.
“Everything is in flux.”
“You can’t step twice in the same river.”

Xenophanes 570-465 BC
Lived to 105. Attacked Homer for polytheism and moral corruption. Reduced gods of mythology to meteorological phenomena. If there had ever been a time when nothing existed nothing could ever had existed. One of first monotheists. Believed in a motionless, changless, and eternal ‘One’.
“Men create gods in their own image.”
“The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat‑nosed and black, while the Thracian’s say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpture like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.”
Divine knowledge is the only true knowledge, while human opinion is totally subjective and probable. Xenophanes is aware that even his own views are an assumption.
“No human being will ever know the Truth. For even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even know they had done so.”

Democritus & Leucippus

Nothingness is real. Because atoms can be numbers everything can be described as such. First to theorize of atoms. Senses deceive, logic best. If no void how could you move.
“Nought happens for nothing”

Protagoras 500-400 BC
most of his works were burned because he was agnostic. Moral relativist.
“Man is the measure of all things: perception and truth are related to the experience and individual of the individual.”
“About the gods, I am not able to know whether they exist or don’t exist.”
Noone is completely self-sufficient.”

Gorgias 483-375 BC
Could teach anything and its opposite, both sides, and argue anything or make weak arguments strong. His nickname was the nihilist. Skeptic. Sophist. Thought nothing existed.

Pyrrho 360-270 BC
Can’t know the nature of anything. Senses tell how things look but not how they are. Since we can’t know anything we shouldn’t judge. Skeptic. Sophist. Sold and bathed animals to make money. Apathy gives no great worries or happiness, just a plain. Apathy gives peace but just mediocrity. No risk = no achievement.

Thrasymachus 425 BC
Sophist. Believed it right for strong to take advantage of the weak. Justice is nothing but advantage of stronger. Thought moral values are socially constructed, reflect interests.

Antisthenes & Diogenes 400 BC
Cynics, think badly of mankind. Lived minimal lives, embraced poverty. Opposed Socratic idea that the state law is higher than own. Reason and virtue. One good=knowledge. One evil=ignorance. Not very nice. Education of youth makes society. Diogenes was revered by Alexander the Great.
“He has the most who is content with the least.”

Socrates 470-399 BC
Wise in that he realized he didn’t know much. Welfare of soul most important. Those who do wrong don’t know better. Virtue best possession, gained through knowledge. Philosophers job is to show others how much they don’t know because therein lies wisdom. Gadfly to the people. Tried and executed for corrupting the minds of the youth.
“Highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and others.”

Plato 428-347 BC

Student of Socrates teacher of Aristotle. Opened a school called the academy; it was free and co-educational. Father of idealism and metaphysics. Theory of forms or ideas- world we see and world we don’t. Idea is more important than form (the actual object we see). Idea will always be there but form won’t last. Soul is most important part. Only soul will be rewarded in afterlife. Suffering in life is product of an evil previous existence. Knowledge is innate, you just have to access it. 3 classes rulers-wisdom, warriors-courage, and workers-temperance. Believed in eugenics. Souls are immortal and existed before our birth. Platonic love=non-physical.
“Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.”

Aristotle 384 BC
Disagreed with Plato in many areas. Tried to prove everything with scientific knowledge you can see. Doctrine of the mean, golden mean (moderation). More you know closer you are to god. Extremes of golden mean are deficiency (cowardice) and surplus (rash). He felt we should have balance in everything for happiness-eating, sleeping, working, playing, etc. Cleanse soul instead of material possessions. Looked at our purpose and design. His view of God was as the unmoved mover, everything came from something. His school was called the Lyceum.

Epicuras 300 BC   
Zero fear of death. Peace of mind. Blessed is he who seeks simple the life. Purpose of philosophy to attain happy tranquil life, with the absence of pain and fear. When we don’t suffer pain we are no longer in need of pleasure. Warned against over indulgence. Soul is mortal, it dies. Death is the end of the body and soul and shouldn’t be feared. Gods don’t concern themselves with human beings. If no want, peace of mind.
“For noone is too young or too far past his prime to achieve the health of his soul.”

“When happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”

Death, therefore-the most dreadful of evils- is nothing to us, since while we exist, death is not present, and whenever death is present, we do not exist. It is nothing either to the living or the dead, since it does not exist for the living and, the dead are no longer there.”

“Every pleasure, therefore, because of its natural relationship to us, is good, but not every pleasure is to be chosen. Likewise, every pain is an evil, but not every pain is of a nature always to be avoided.”

“For it is not continuous drinking and revels, nor the enjoyment of women and young boys, nor of fish and other viands that a luxurious table holds, which make for a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, and which drives away those opinions resulting in the greatest disturbance to the soul.”

Cicero 106-43 BC    orator, considered one of the best speakers ever
“There is no human being of any race who, if he finds a guide, cannot attain to virtue.”

“Knowledge of the principles of right living is what makes men better,”

“What is more divine, I will not say in man only, but in all heavens and earth, than reason? And reason, when it is full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom.”

“While the other elements of which man consists were derived from what is mortal, and are therefore fragile and perishable, the soul was generated in us by God.”

Lucretius 99-55 BC    death is nothing
“He who is not cannot be miserable.”

“For when you look back upon all the past expanse of measureless time, and think how various are the motions of matter, you may easily come to believe that these same seeds of which now we consist have been often before placed in the same arrangement they are now in.”

No one feels the want of himself and his life when both mind and body alike are quiet in sleep; for all we care that sleep might be everlasting, and no craving for ourselves touched us at all.”

Horace 65-27 BC    Father was a slave, served in army, greatest lyric poet
“If you only wish you can.”

“All earthly creatures are allotted mortal souls and there is no escape of death for great or small. Therefore, good friend, while you may, enjoy life in happy circumstances and live ever mindful of how brief your life is.”

“He that holds fast the golden mean, and lives contentedly between the little and the great, feels not the wants that pinch the poor, nor the plagues that haunt the rich man’s door, embittering all his state.

Seneca 3 BC- 65AD    Roman stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, exiled
“Whether we are caught in the grasp of an inexorable law of fate, whether it is God who as lord of the universe has ordered all things, or whether we are buffeted haphazardly by chance, it is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us. She will encourage us to submit to God with cheerfulness and to fortune with defiance; she will show you how to follow God and to bear what chance may send you”

“If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich. Nature’s wants are small, while those of opinion are limitless.”

“Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.”

“One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we’re seduced by convention.”

Plutarch 46-120 AD    Historian, biographer and essayist

“Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they are. Embrace what you actually get.”

“When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it. What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not the things that disturb us but our interpretation of their significance.”

“Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned with who is watching you.”

”Make the most of what you’ve got, what is actually yours. You can be justifiably happy with yourself and at ease when you’ve harmonized your actions with nature by recognizing what truly is your own.”

“Be on your guard against a false sense of self-importance.”

“You can only be one person – either a good person or a bad person. You have two essential choices. Either you can set yourself to developing your reason, cleaving to truth, or you can hanker after externals. The choice is yours and yours alone.”

“The truth is that people who subordinate reason to their feelings of the moment are actually slaves of their desires and aversions.”

“Our hopes and fears sway us, not events themselves.”

“Your aim should be to view the world as an integrated whole, to faithfully incline your whole being toward the highest good, and to adopt the will of nature as your own.”

“Proper preparation for the future consists of forming good personal habits, This is done by actively pursuing the good in all the particulars of your daily life and by regularly examining your motives to make sure they are free of the shackles of fear, greed, and laziness. If you do this you won’t be buffeted about by outside events.”

“searching for its hidden opportunity. It is a failure of the imagination not to do so.”

“What is a good person? The one who achieves tranquility by having formed the habit of asking on every occasion, “What is the right thing to do now?”

“Who exactly do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? What are your personal ideals? Whom do you admire? What are their special traits that you would make your own?”

“think before you speak to make sure you are speaking with good purpose.”

“Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind.”

“It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there’s no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.”

“But remember that our moral influence is a two-way street, and we should thus make sure by our own thoughts, words, and deeds to be a positive influence on those we deal with. The real test of personal excellence lies in the attention we give to the often neglected small details of our conduct.”

Abstain from casual sex and particularly avoid sexual intercourse before you get married. This may sound prudish or old-fashioned, but it is a time-tested way by which we demonstrate respect for ourselves and others.”

“Give your body excellent care to promote its health and well-being. Give it everything it absolutely requires, including healthy food and drink, dignified clothing, and a warm and comfortable home.”

“While the behavior of many is dictated by what is going on around them, hold yourself to a higher standard. Take care to avoid parties or games where thoughtless revelry and carousing are the norm. If you find yourself at a public event, remain rooted in your own purposes and ideals.”

“The overvaluation of money, status, and competition poisons our personal relations. The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desire and see how fleeting they are.”

All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means – for example, wealth and status – with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get farther from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.”

“Care take this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself.”

“Give your best and always be kind.”

St. Augustine 354-430 AD   

Aquinas 1225-1274   Italian Catholic priest, philosopher and theologian. scholastic
“God... For by this word is signified that thing than which nothing greater can be deceived.”

“God is truth itself”

“The existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.”

“We can demonstrate the existence of God from his effects”

Below are his 5 proofs that God exists
“Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another...Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover which is moved by no other. And this everyone understands to be God.”
Unmoved Mover
“There is no case known (nor indeed, is it possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself... Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God”
Creator
“If at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist... Therefore we must admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God”
Eternal
“Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But more and less are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum... Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection. And this we call God.”
Maximum Good
“Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end; and this being we call God.”
Designer

Martin Luther 1483-1546    FAITH, greatly inspired Protestant revolution
“Just the same commandment which applied to St. Paul applies also to me; and the second commandment is given as much on my account as on his account.”

“God anticipates us, and himself arranges the words and form of prayer for us, and places them upon our lips.”

“It is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!”

Montaigne 1533-15952    French Renaissance, popularized the essay

“All the opinions in the world agree on this - that pleasure is our goal - though they choose different means to it.”

“Since it [death] catches you just the same, whether you flee like a coward or act like a man”

Pascal 1623-1662    Mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher, rational
“Generally speaking, we are more firmly convinced by reasons that we have discovered for ourselves”

“Whenever we want to be helpful in convincing someone that he is wrong, and so correct him, we also have to see things from his point of view. For perhaps he is right as he sees it, but he may also need to see things from a differing point of view.”

“It is habit that really tends to convince us, and indeed, it makes us either Christians, or even Turks, or pagans, or merchants, soldiers, or anything else!”

“Man is vain to pay so much attention to things which do not really matter.”

“We strive to embellish and improve our image, and so neglect the true self... Cheerfully we would be cowards if that was the way we could acquire a reputation for bravery!”

“So it is pleasant to be cold so that one can enjoy being warm.”

“Since we are always planning how we are going to be happy, it is inevitable that we never are.”

Pascal’s wager                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       God Existsts                                  God doesn’t exist
Live like God exists                                                eternal happiness                                  status quo
Live as though he doesn’t                                   risk eternal misery                                 status quo

Descartes 1596-1650    Existentialism, “I think, therefore I am.”
“For to be possessed of good mental powers is not sufficient; the principal matter is to apply them well. The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”

“It is good to know something of the customs of different peoples in order to judge more sanely our own, and not to think that everything of a fashion not ours is absurd and contrary to reason, as do those who have seen nothing.”

“All those whose sentiments are very contrary to ours are not yet necessarily barbarians or savages, but may be possessed of reason in as great or even greater degree than ourselves. I also considered how very different the self-same man, identical in mind and spirit, may become, according as he is brought up from childhood amongst the French or Germans, or has passed his whole life amongst Chinese or cannibals. I likewise noticed how even in the fashions of one’s clothing the same thing that pleased us ten years ago, and which will perhaps please us once again before ten years are passed, seems at the present time extravagant and ridiculous.”

Copernicus 1473-1543    First astronomer to formulate heliocentric cosmology
“I am not so enamored with my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.”

“I began to be annoyed that the movements of the world machine, created for our sake by the best and most systematic Artisan of all, were not understood.”

“Badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose”

Galileo 1564-1642    Scientific revolution, tried for heresy because taught heliocentric
“They would extend such authorities until even in purely physical matters - where faith is not involved - they would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense.”

“I think in the first place it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth - whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify.”

“For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature’s actions than in the sacred testaments of the Bible.”

Vesalius 1514-1564    Founder of modern human anatomy
“Three means of aid, of which the first was a system of diet, the second medication, the third surgery.”

“The triple system of healing that I mentioned is all but inseparable”

Harvey 1578-1657    First to describe exact circulation of blood and heart
“All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown”

“They know full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things are discovered by accident”

Newton 1643-1727    Described gravity and laws of motion
“By existing always and every where, he constitutes duration and space... in him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other”

“A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.”

“And since space is divisible in infinitum and matter is not necessarily in all places, it may be also allowed that God is able to create particles of matter of several sizes and figures, and in several proportions to space, and perhaps to different densities and forces, and thereby to vary the laws of nature, and make worlds of several sorts in several parts of the universe. At least, I see nothing of contradiction in all this.”

“Philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain.”

Jenner 1749-1843    Developer of the smallpox vaccine
“The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases.”

“He has familiarized himself with a great number of animals, which may not originally have been intended for his associates. The wolf, disarmed of ferocity, is now pillowed in the lady’s lap, The cat, the little tiger of our island, whose natural home is the forest, is equally domesticated and caressed.”

Kant 1724-1804    German philosopher, dare to know, skeptic
“Two things fill the mind with ever new increasing awe and admiration... the starred heaven above and the moral law within”

“Scientific knowledge, critically explored and systematically introduced, is the narrow gateway which leads to wisdom”

“The second view raises my value infinitely, as an intelligence, through my personality; for in this personality the moral law reveals a life independent of animality and even of the entire world of sense... This is not restricted to the conditions and limits of this life, but radiates into the infinite.”

Wollstonecraft 1759-1797    Women’s rights
“Elegance is inferior to virtue”

“Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial.”

Kierkegaard 1813-1855    Father of existentialism
“Then woman was taken from man’s side and given to him for community - for love and companionship first take something from a man before they give.”

“To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.”

“Not merely to be able to eat the plainer foods, but to be able to find these plainer dishes to be the most exquisite.”

“The task is not: to find - the loveable object; but the task is: to find the object already given or chosen - loveable, and to be able to continue finding him loveable, no matter how he becomes changed.”

Swift 1667-1745    Anglo‑Irish cleric, satirist, Gulliver’s Travels
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought”

“Nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.”

Dostoevsky 1821-1881    Russian novelist, existentialist
“To think what drinking will bring a man down to!”

“You ought to take a thought and mend your ways. Have done with drinking! Just look what rags you go about in”

“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself”

“‘The past,’ he thought, ‘ is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.’”

Tolstoy 1828-1910    Russian realist fiction novelist, non-violent resistance
“Only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy.”

“‘God will forgive you!’ said he. ‘Maybe I am a hundred times worse than you.’”

“We may not be rich, but we have enough.”

“Endure it for an hour, and you have an age to live.”

Chekhov 1860-1904    Russian short-story and playwright, also a medical doctor
“‘The great thing is for life to be seen through a prism,’ she said. ‘In other words, life must be divided up in our consciousness into its simplest elements, as if into the seven primary colors, and each element must be studied separately.’”

“‘You’ve probably had a quarrel with Andrey, but lovers’ tiffs end in kisses.”

“But there was so much that was beautiful in his naivety.”

“Faith narrows the sphere of the mysterious considerably for us.”

“You will agree that there are many unresolved riddles in life.”

“‘You’ve got to understand, how abhorrent, how immoral your idle life is,’ continued Sasha. ‘Can’t you see that to enable you and your Mama and your Granny to live in idleness, others have to work for you, you are devouring the life of others, is that pure, now isn’t it filthy?’”

Thoreau 1817-1862    Lived in a remote home-made house, Do It Yourself
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.”

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make‑believe.”

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them”

Sartre 1905-1980    Leading figure in 20th century French philosophy, existentialist
“I wonder... I wonder if it’s true that we just cease to exist.”

“I had been awake for forty-eight hours, and I was worn out. But I didn’t want to lose two hours of life.”

“After all, these two bedizened fellows with their riding crops and boots were just men who were going to die one day. A little later than I, perhaps, but not a great deal.”

“His life was no more valuable than mine. No life was of any value.”

Camus 1913-1960   man and thinker over member of a particular school, Nobel Prize
“His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing.”

“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

“He knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning towards his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death.”

Gandhi 1869-1948    Mahatma is nickname for ‘Great Soul’, non-violent resistance
“All miracle are due to the silent and effective working of invisible forces. Non-violence is the most invisible and most effective.”

“Violence must beget violence.”

Einstein 1879-1955    Theory of relativity, developed atomic bomb, genius
“The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake.”