The Great Sage says…What? Post a quote or passage

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"Hypocrisy, the idiot's wisdom, and the wise man's folly." -William Blake

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." -William Blake

"Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you." -William Blake

"Listen to the fool's reproach! It is a kingly title." -William Blake

"I said to myself: I am wiser than this man. It may well be that we are both ignorant of that which is good and true, but there is this difference: He is ignorant but believes he is wise, while I, being ignorant, am aware that I am ignorant. It seemed to me then that in this I was wiser, if not much, than this man.... and they shall have me stripped of my rights as a citizen, or banished, or sentenced to death, horrible evils in the eyes of Melytus and his friends, but for me the worst evil is to work for the death of an innocent man, as Anytus and his friends are doing." -Socrates

"Man is an envious, famished and insatiable beast." -Francisco Tario

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets and hour on the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -Shakespeare

"Grey is all theory, but green is the tree of life." -Goethe

"Gold, the dumb god, that givest all men tongues; that canst do naught, but makest men do all things..." -Ben Jonson

"And thus they made out of the wolf a dog and out of man, man's best domesticated animal." -Nietzsche

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station,
through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."

George Washington Carver

I love it! There are so many cool quotes here, its really fantastic, thanks so much everyone for posting them all.

I also "went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers" , as I think have so many...

Here's a few more:

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we wouldn't" - Emerson Pugh

(I don't know why but this one makes me think of the douglas adams, 42 quote, maybe because I can't understand the answer)
the closest I've come to understanding that answer is that I know adams did the I Ching, and in the I Ching "42" is "abundance"
but I think he meant it more as a zen koan)

Jane Austen:

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."


"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn't jealous. It doesn't sing its own praises. It isn't arrogant. It isn't rude. It doesn't think about itself. It isn't irritable. It doesn't keep track of wrongs. It isn't happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

A beautiful thing to remember from Corinthians... thanks for that last one.

So strange about the Babylon 5 quote, because I recently got the collection on DVD and just saw the episode where Marcus said that and thought, hmmm… so I was so suprised to see it posted here...

And oddly enough, I actually took note of these from last nights episodes:

"As much as our humanity got us into this, our humanity is the only thing that is going to get us out again"
- Captain Sheridan

"There's always a choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with a decision we have already made. Now if you undersand that, theres hope. If not...(sigh)."
- Lady Morella
(prophet character played by Majel Barrett)

"Greatness is never appreciated in youth. It's called pride in mid-life, It's dismissed in old age and re-considered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can to destroy it."
- Lady Morella

Question Everything.

“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.”

- George Bernard Shaw


“Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.”

- George W Bush (Not someone I consider to be a sage, whoever wrtes his speeches is.)


“Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation his defense”

- Anonymous


"The coward threatens when he is safe."

- Goethe


“It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”

- Voltaire


"Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”

- George Elliot


"A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites."

-Quintus Curtius Rufus



"To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. "

- Confucius


One of my favourites:

"In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong."

- Dickens

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge."

Daniel Boorstin

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."

Amos Bronson Alcott

My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck. Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee. Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee. Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm. Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways. For the froward is abomination to the LORD: but his secret is with the righteous. The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly. The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.
(Proverbs 3)

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Goethe

"Beauty is a form of genius" - Oscar Wilde

"It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream — alone. ..." - Joseph Conrad

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - Marcus Aurelius (?)

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Last edited by twoshots on 05 Mar 2008, 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey the God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren... For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul... Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times."

-Socrates as transcribed by Plato

"Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination."
Immanuel Kant

"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him"
Voltaire

“ Before God made heaven and earth, he was not doing anything; for if he was doing or making something, what else would he be doing but creating. And no creature was made before any creature was made.” (Saint Augustine, Confessions, 11,11,13)

“…for wisdom is known to be the eldest of all created things……The wisdom of which I speak is a created wisdom, the intellectual order of being which by contemplating the Light becomes light itself …We find no mention of time prior to this wisdom since what was created before all else necessarily precedes time, which is also a creature’ but it is preceded by the eternity of the creator himself. From him came its origin: not a temporal beginning, for time did not yet exist, but the dawn of its creation. It therefore derives its being from you, our God, in such a way that it is entirely different from you; it is not Being-Itself.” (Saint Augustine, Confessions, 12.15.20)


“All things in the world come from being.
And being comes from non-being.” – Tao Te Ching

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but
The infinite universe stands always
Before your eyes.

- Sosan (Zen)

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
(Augustine)

"The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes."

~Henry Ward Beecher

"3519 AM, 4229 JP, 485 BC

1098. When Darius was now ready to begin his war against the Egyptians and Athenians, he was required by the laws of the Persians to name his successor in the kingdom.

1099. Artobazanes, whom others call Artemenes, or Ariamenes, was his son by Gobryas' daughter. He was born to him before he came to be king, and claimed the succession by right of the firstborn. Xerxes was born after Darius became king. Xerxes' mother was Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who had founded the Persian Empire. {*Herodotus, l. 7. c. 2,3. 3:301,303} There was friendly rivalry between the two brothers. For more on this, see Justin and Plutarch. {Justin, Trogus, l. 2. c. 10.} {*Plutarch, Artaxerxes, l. 1. c. 2. 11:131} {*Plutarch, Sayings of Kings and Commanders, (173c) 3:15} {*Plutarch, On Brotherly Love, l. 1. c. 18. 6:303-307}

3519c AM, 4229 JP, 485 BC

1100. When Darius had declared Xerxes to be the next king, he was now ready to take his journey. According to Diodorus {*Diod. Sic., l. 11. c. 2. s. 2. 4:123} he was on his way into Greece in the year following the revolt of the Egyptians. Toward the latter half of that year he died, having reigned for a full thirty-six years. {*Herodotus, l. 7. c. 4. 3:305} [E121]

1101. After him came Xerxes, the fourth king of Persia after Cyrus. He trusted in his riches, (which were indeed exceedingly great) and stirred up his own subjects, together with all his allies and friends, to make war on the Greeks, as had been prophesied by Daniel. {#Da 11:2} This was not originally his intention but he was put up to it by Mardonius, his first cousin, and by the Aleuadae who were the princes of Thessaly, as well as by the family of Peisistratus and by Onomacritus, a sorcerer of Athens. {*Herodotus, l. 7. c. 5,6. 3:305,307}

3524d AM, 4234 JP, 480 BC

1124. Four months after crossing the Hellespont with his army, Xerxes came to Athens and found it abandoned by all its inhabitants. Callias was the ruler of Athens at this time. {*Herodotus, l. 8. c. 51. 4:47} In this year, Anaxagoras of Clazomene, a scholar of Anaximenes the Milesian, was made public reader of philosophy in Athens at the age of twenty, according to Laertius, as from Demetrius of Phalerum in his catalogue of the fifty archons of Athens. {*Diogenes Laertius, Anaxagoras, l. 2. c. 3. (7) 1:137} This was the time that philosophy was first brought from Ionia and established in Athens, according to Clement, who stated: {*Clement, Stromateis, l. 1. c. 14. 2:314} {*Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, l. 7. c. 17. s. 1,2. 2:139}

"When Xerxes had taken Athens, he also took a multitude of books, which Peisistratus and the Athenians had stored there. He sent them to Persia. The rest of the city, except the Acropolis, he burned, according to Aulus Gellius."

1125. I do not agree with him, for Herodotus stated plainly that all the Acropolis was burned. {*Herodotus, l. 8. c. 53. 4:51} Ctesias also stated likewise. Diodorus further affirmed that the temple of Athena, which was undoubtedly in the Acropolis, was destroyed. {*Diod. Sic., l. 11. c. 14. s. 5. 4:163}

1126. The farther Xerxes marched into Greece, the more countries joined him.

1129. The victory of the Greeks against Xerxes happened about the twentieth day of the month of Boedromion, as Plutarch observed. {*Plutarch, Camillus, l. 1. c. 19. s. 3. 2:139} It plainly appeared in Herodotus that the main day of that holy solemnity was the twentieth of the month of Boedromion. {*Herodotus, l. 8. c. 65. 4:61} [L180] On this day, accordingly, the mysterious Pomp of Iacchus was publicly shown to the people. {*Plutarch, Camillus, l. 1. c. 19. s. 6,7. 2:141} Themistocles prevented his countrymen from pursuing the enemies after their defeat at Salamis, which had put them to flight. He said this: {*Herodotus, l. 8. c. 109. 4:111}

"Now, let us stay in Greece and take care of ourselves and our families and look to the tillage and sowing of our land, since the enemy is expelled from it. When the spring comes, then will we take time to sail into the Hellespont and Ionia."

3525d AM, 4235 JP, 479 BC

1154. At Plataea, according to Ctesias, the Greeks, under the command of Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, routed the Persian army which was comprised of one hundred and twenty thousand men.

3531a AM, 4240 JP, 474 BC

1178. Artabanus, a Hyrcanian, was captain of the guard and was in the position of enjoying more of Xerxes' trust and having more authority with him than his father Artasyras had. He conspired with Mithridates, a eunuch who was a chamberlain to the king, (Ctesias called him Spamitres or Aspamitres) and who was his close friend and relative. He was let into the bedchamber with his seven young, robust sons at night, and they killed Xerxes as he lay in his bed. In the middle of the night they hastened to Artaxerxes and told him that Darius, (who was the oldest of the three sons of Xerxes) had killed his father so that he would be king sooner. Aelian related this as if it were indeed the truth. {*Aelian, Historical Miscellany, l. 13. c. 3. 1:421} By this lie, he persuaded Artaxerxes to have the king's guard kill his brother Darius. {Ctesias} {*Diod. Sic., l. 11. c. 69. 4:305} {Justin, Trogus, l. 3. c. 1.} "

-Annals of the World, James Ussher

"1. UPON the death of Darius, Xerxes his son took the kingdom, who, as he inherited his father's kingdom, so did he inherit his piety towards God, and honor of him; for he did all things suitably to his father relating to Divine worship, and he was exceeding friendly to the Jews. Now about this time a son of Jeshua, whose name was Joacim, was the high priest. Moreover, there was now in Babylon a righteous man, and one that enjoyed a great reputation among the multitude. He was the principal priest of the people, and his name was Esdras. He was very skillful in the laws of Moses, and was well acquainted with king Xerxes. He had determined to go up to Jerusalem, and to take with him some of those Jews that were in Babylon; and he desired that the king would give him an epistle to the governors of Syria, by which they might know who he was.

Accordingly, the king wrote the following epistle to those governors:

"Xerxes, king of kings, to Esdras the priest, and reader of the Divine law, greeting. I think it agreeable to that love which I bear to mankind, to permit those of the Jewish nation that are so disposed, as well as those of the priests and Levites that are in our kingdom, to go together to Jerusalem. Accordingly, I have given command for that purpose; and let every one that hath a mind go, according as it hath seemed good to me, and to my seven counselors, and this in order to their review of the affairs of Judea, to see whether they be agreeable to the law of God. Let them also take with them those presents which I and my friends have vowed, with all that silver and gold that is found in the country of the Babylonians, as dedicated to God, and let all this be carried to Jerusalem to God for sacrifices. Let it also be lawful for thee and thy brethren to make as many vessels of silver and gold as thou pleasest. Thou shalt also dedicate those holy vessels which have been given thee, and as many more as thou hast a mind to make, and shall take the expenses out of the king's treasury. I have, moreover, written to the treasurers of Syria and Phoenicia, that they take care of those affairs that Esdras the priest, and reader of the laws of God, is sent about. And that God may not be at all angry with me, or with my children, I grant all that is necessary for sacrifices to God, according to the law, as far as a hundred cori of wheat. And I enjoin you not to lay any treacherous imposition, or any tributes, upon their priests or Levites, or. sacred singers, or porters, or sacred servants, or scribes of the temple. And do thou, O Esdras, appoint judges according to the wisdom [given thee] of God, and those such as understand the law, that they may judge in all Syria and Phoenicia; and do thou instruct those also which are ignorant of it, that if any one of thy countrymen transgress the law of God, or that of the king, he may be punished, as not transgressing it out of ignorance, but as one that knows it indeed, but boldly despises and contemns it; and such may be punished by death, or by paying fines. Farewell."

"

Antiquities of the Jews 11.5.1, Flavius Josephus