The collection / 593 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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593 results · Page 23 of 25Play this collection ▷

01c. 75 BC

My precept to all who build is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.

Cicero / quote

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02c. 32 AD

What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.

Seneca / quote

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03c. 32 AD

He that visits the sick, in the hope of a legacy, I look upon him in this to be no better than a raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck out the eyes of it.

Seneca / quote

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04c. 75 BC

The office of liberality consisteth in giving with judgment.

Cicero / quote

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05c. 75 BC

No one sees what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.

Cicero / quote

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06c. 32 AD

Overtasking the mind is an unwise act; when nature is unwilling, the labour is vain.

Seneca / quote

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07c. 32 AD

'Tis time enough to bear a misfortune when it comes without anticipating it.

Seneca / quote

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08c. 75 BC

Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it.

Cicero / quote

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09c. 32 AD

Men's sins are before our eyes: our own, behind our backs.

Seneca / quote

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10c. 32 AD

The more violent the storm, the sooner it is over.

Seneca / quote

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11c. 83 AD

He cannot provide for the wants of others, whose own are numerous and craving.

Plutarch / quote

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12c. 83 AD

Where two discourse, if the one's anger rise, The man who lets the contest fall is wise.

Plutarch / quote

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13c. 83 AD

Cato said ‘he had rather people should inquire why he had not a statue erected to his memory, than why he had.’

Plutarch / quote

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14c. 32 AD

No one of himself can rise out of the depths, but must clasp some outstretched hand.

Seneca / quote

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15c. 75 BC

I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression,—a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination.

Cicero / quote

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16c. 83 AD

As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish them to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture.

Plutarch / quote

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17c. 83 AD

We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.

Plutarch / quote

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18c. 32 AD

The world itself is too small for the covetous.

Seneca / quote

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19c. 75 BC

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.

Cicero / quote

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20c. 75 BC

There is not a moment without some duty.

Cicero / quote

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21c. 83 AD

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.

Plutarch / quote

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22c. 75 BC

All great men are in some degree inspired.

Cicero / quote

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23c. 32 AD

He who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.

Seneca / quote

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24c. 75 BC

Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future,—these are the domestic Furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.

Cicero / quote

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