Democritus Quotes
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Man should know from this rule that he is cut off from truth.
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'Tis well to restrain the wicked, and in any case not to join him in his wrong-doing.
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One should emulate works and deeds of virtue, not arguments about it.
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For a man petticoat government is the limit of insolence.
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To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.
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Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness. Luck seldom measures swords with wisdom. Most things in life quick wit and sharp vision can set right.
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No one deserves to live who has not at least one good-man-and-true for a friend.
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Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.
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It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.
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Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.
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Strength of body is nobility in beasts of burden, strength of character is nobility in men.
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There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.
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Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
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Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.
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Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.
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Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.
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Fortune is lavish with her favors, but not to be depended on. Nature on the other hand is self-sufficing, and therefore with her feebler but trustworthy resources she wins the greater meed of hope.
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Πολλοὶ πολυμαθέες νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσιν.
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In fact we do not know anything infallibly, but only that which changes according to the condition of our body and of the influences that reach and impinge upon it.
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In the weightiest matters we must go to school to the animals, and learn spinning and weaving from the spider, building from the swallow, singing from the birds,-from the swan and the nightingale, imitating their art.
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νόμωι (γάρ φησι) γλυκὺ καὶ νόμωι πικρόν, νόμωι θερμόν, νόμωι ψυχρόν, νόμωι χροιή, ἐτεῆι δὲ ἄτομα καὶ κενόν (Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, 9; Sext. Emp. adv. math. VII 135)
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Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.
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If one choose the goods of the soul, he chooses the diviner portion; if the goods of the body, the merely mortal.
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Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.