Apollonius of Tyana Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Apollonius of Tyana:
Never may a man prone to believe scandal be a despot or a popular leader! Under his guidance, democracy itself will be despotism.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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When I review Xerxes' achievements, I praise him, not for having yoked the Hellespont, but for having crossed it. But I can see that Nero will neither sail through the Isthmus nor complete his digging.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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As soldiers need not only courage but tactics also, so does a philosopher need not only courage and philosophy but discernment also, to tell what his right time of dying is - so that he neither seek it nor flee it.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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O thou Sun, send me as far over the earth as is my pleasure and thine, and may I make the acquaintance of good men, but never hear anything of bad ones, nor they of me.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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In my judgment, excellence and wealth are direct opposites, since when the one shrinks, the other grows, and when one grows, the other shrinks.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Nero may have understood how to tune his cithern, but he disgraced his imperial office both by slackening and by tightening the strings.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Plato said that virtue has no master. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I have not yet learned to keep still.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Pythagoras said that medicine is the most godlike of arts. But if the most godlike, it should tend to the soul as well as the body, or else a living thing must be unhealthy, being diseased in its higher part.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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It is the duty of the law-giver to deliver to the many the instructions of whose truth he has persuaded himself.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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If any man has left us for fear of Nero, I shall not account him a coward; but I shall hail as a philosopher any man who has been superior to this fear, and I shall teach him all I know.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Festivals cause diseases, since they lighten cares but increase gluttony.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I pray as follows: May justice reign, may the laws not be broken, may the wise men be poor, and the poor men rich, without sin.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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A man must fortify himself and understand that a wise man who yields to laziness or anger or passion or love of drink, or who commits any other action prompted by impulse and inopportune, will probably find his fault condoned; but if he stoops to greed, he will not be pardoned, but render himself odious as a combination of all vices at once.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Don't keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I asked certain rich men if they felt embittered. 'How could we not?' they said. So I asked them what caused this anguish. They blamed their wealth.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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It is at the time of dawn that we must commune with the gods.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Do not consider that to be wealth which is hoarded away, for how is it better than sand gathered from the nearest heap? Nor that which comes in from men who groan at their taxes: for the gold that is wrung from tears is of base alloy and black.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Every argument is incapable of helping unless it is singular and addressed to a single person. Therefore, one who discourses in any other way presumably does so from love of reputation.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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If you have problems of conduct that are difficult and hard to settle, I will furnish you with solutions, for I not only know matters of practice and duty, but I even know them beforehand.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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In my travels, which have been wider than ever man yet accomplished, I have seen many, many wild beasts of Arabia and India; but this beast, that is commonly called a Tyrant, I know not how many heads it has, nor if it be crooked of claw, and armed with horrible fangs.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Just as an individual of pre-eminent worth transforms democracy into a monarchy of the best man, even so the rule of one man, if in all things it has an eye to the common welfare, is democracy.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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The gods, as they are beneficent, if they find anyone who is healthy and whole and unscarred by vice, will send him away, surely, after crowning him, not with golden crowns, but with all sorts of blessings.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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You need not wonder at my knowing all human languages; for, to tell you the truth, I also understand all the secrets of human silence.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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Multicolored stones and paintings, walkways, and theaters are useless in a city unless it also contains wisdom and law. Such things are the subject of wisdom and law, not equivalent to them.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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The gods do not need sacrifices, so what might one do to please them? Acquire wisdom, it seems to me, and do all the good in one's power to those humans who deserve it.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I asked questions when I was a stripling, and it is not my business to ask questions now, but to teach people what I have discovered.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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All the earth is mine, and I have a right to go all over it and through it.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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My ideal is for each to do what he knows and what he can.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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It is a true man's part not to err, but it is also noble of a man to perceive his error.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I feel friendship towards philosophers, but towards sophists, teachers of literature, or any other such kind of godforsaken people, I neither feel friendship now, nor may I ever do so in the future.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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O ye gods, grant unto me to have little and to want nothing.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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I delight to lodge in such temples as are not regularly kept closed. None of the gods reject me; they make me partner of their roof.
~Apollonius of Tyana
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