QUOTATIONS FROM THE ANCIENTS (born before 1700 A.D.)

A faithful friend is the medicine of life.

The Bible: Ecclesiasticus

All colours will agree in the dark

Francis Bacon 1561-1626

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.

Alexander Pope 1688-1744

Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.

John Dryden 1631-1700

But what is past my help is past my care.

John Fletcher 1579-1625

Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear,
To be what we know not what,
We know not where.

John Dryden 1631-1700

Eternity was in that moment.

William Congreve 1670-1729

Everything flows and nothing stays.

Heraclitus 540-480 B.C.

For man plans, but God arranges.

Thomas à Kempis 1380-1471

From a little spark may burst a mighty flame.

Dante 1265-1321

Give me where to stand and I will move the earth.

Archimedes 287-212 B.C.

God sends the cold according to the coat.

Montaigne 1533-1592

Grief is itself a medicine.

William Cowper 1731-1800

He best can pity who has felt the woe.

John Gay 1685-1732

Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned,
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.

William Congreve 1670-1729

I ask you, wouldn't you say that anyone who took the view that a lamp was worse off when it was put out than it was before it was lit was an utter idiot? We, too, are lit and put out. We suffer somewhat in the intervening period, but at either end of it there is deep tranquillity. For, unless I'm mistaken, we are wrong, my dear Lucilius, in holding that death follows after, when in fact it precedes as well as succeeds. Death is all that was before us. What does it matter, after all, whether you cease to be or never begin, when the result of either is that you do not exist?

Seneca 4 B.C.-A.D. 65

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

John Locke 1632-1704

If I rest, I rust.

Martin Luther 1483-1546

In trouble to be troub'd
Is to have your trouble doub'd.

Daniel Defoe 1661-1731

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Epictetus A.D. 55-135

It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.

Tacitus A.D. 55

It's not all butter that the cow drops.

John Haywood 1546

Many things come between the mouth and the morsel.

Noctes Atticae 200 A.D.

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.

William Occam 1280-1349

Not Heav'n itself upon the past hast pow'r;
But what has been, has been,
and I have had my hour.

John Dryden 1631-1700

Nothing is an unmixed blessing.

Horace 65-8 B.C.

One leak will sink a ship.

John Bunyan 1628-1688

One more such victory and we are lost.

Pyrrhus 318-272 B.C.

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Francis Bacon 1561-1626

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
But who guards the guardians?

Juvenal 55-127 A.D.

Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it,
Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay,
Of the same lump
To make one vessel unto honour,
And another unto dishonour.

The Bible: Romans

That which is bitter to endure
may be sweet to remember.

Thomas Fuller 1654-1734

The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.

Mme du Deffand 1697-1780

The fall of dropping water wears away the stone.

Lucretius 96-55 B.C.

The first and wisest of them all professed
To know this only, that we nothing know.

John Milton 1608-1674

The kingdom of God is within you

The Bible: St. Luke

The mind in its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

John Milton - Paradise Lost

The remedy is worse than the disease.

Francis Bacon 1561-1626

There are as many opinions as there are people: each has his own correct way.

Terence 190-159 B.C.

There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.

Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

There is nothing permanent except change.

Heraclitus 540-480 B.C.

There's music in all things
If man had ears;
The earth is but an echo
Of the spheres.

George Gordon, Lord Bryon 1788-1824

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.

George Herbert 1593-1633

'Tis not necessary to light a candle to the sun.

Algernon Sidney 1622-1683

To find oneself between the anvil and the hammer.

Françoise Rabelais 1483-1553

Tout est pour le meiux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.

All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Voltaire 1694-1778

Travel light and you can sing in the robber's face.

Juvenal 60-140 A.D.

True and false are attributes of speech, not of things.

Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679

What can't be cured must be endured.

Rabelais 1483-1553

What's amiss I'll strive to mend, and endure what can't be mended.

Isaac Watts 1674-1748

Where there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph.

Pierre Corneille 1606-1684

Why do you laugh? Change but the name and the story is told of you.

Horace 65-8 B.C.

Willful waste brings woeful want.

Thomas Fuller 1654-1734

Who will bell the cat?

Aesop

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Alexander Pope 1688-1744

You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.

Publilius Syrus

You can't love a butterfly until you have loved a caterpillar.

Benedictine monk 15th century

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.

Joseph Joubert 1754-1824