Presocratic Philosophers

"True and perfect Friendship is, to make one heart and mind of many hearts and bodies."

"He is not rich, that enjoyeth not his own goods."

"By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise."

"A fool is known by his Speech; and a wise man by Silence."

"The King that followeth Truth, and ruleth according to Justice, shall reign quietly: but he that doth the contrary, seeketh another to reign for him."

"Tell not abroad what thou intendest to do; for if thou speed not, thou shalt be mocked!"

"If thy fellows hurt thee in small things, suffer it! and be as bold with them!"

"Take not thine enemy for thy friend; nor thy friend for thine enemy!"

"Rejoice not in another man's misfortune!"

"Let thy mind rule thy tongue!"

"Hear gladly!"

"Attempt nothing above thy strength!"

"Be not hasty to speak; nor slow to hear!"

"Wish not the thing, which thou mayest not obtain!"

"If thou intend to do any good; tarry not till to-morrow! for thou knowest not what may chance thee this night."

"Use examples; that such as thou teachest may understand thee the better!"

"Reason not with him, that will deny the principal truths!"

"Honor Wisdom; and deny it not to them that would learn; and shew it unto them that dispraise it! Sow not the sea fields!"

"Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. Science is got by diligence; but Discretion and Wisdom cometh of GOD."

"Without Justice, no realm may prosper."

"Happy is that City that hath a wise man to govern it."

"To use Virtue is perfect blessedness."

"Envy has been, is, and shall be, the destruction of many. What is there, that Envy hath not defamed, or Malice left undefiled? Truly, no good thing."

"A solitary man is a God, or a beast."

"None but a Craftsman can judge of a craft."

"Repentance deserveth Pardon."

"The best and greatest winning is a true friend; and the greatest loss is the loss of time."

"It is better to suffer, than to do, wrong."

"He is worst of all, that is malicious against his friends."

"Evil destroyeth itself."

"Better be mute, than dispute with the Ignorant."

"Virtue is harmony."

"The oldest, shortest words— "yes" and "no"— are those which require the most thought."

"There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly."

"Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression."

"In this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on."

"Ten is the very nature of number. All Greeks and all barbarians alike count up to ten, and having reached ten revert again to the unity. And again, Pythagoras maintains, the power of the number 10 lies in the number 4, the tetrad. This is the reason: if one starts at the unit (1) and adds the successive number up to 4, one will make up the number 10 (1+2+3+4 = 10). And if one exceeds the tetrad, one will exceed 10 too.... So that the number by the unit resides in the number 10, but potentially in the number 4. And so the Pythagoreans used to invoke the Tetrad as their most binding oath: "By him that gave to our generation the Tetractys, which contains the fount and root of eternal nature...""

"Pythagoras... assumed as first principles the numbers and symmetries existing among them, which he calls harmonies, and the elements compounded of both, that are called geometrical. ...he says that the nature of Number is the Decad."

"Let us not link ourselves with the vilifiers of Plato and the persecutors of Confucius. They were oppressed by citizens who were considered the pride of the country. Thus has the world raised its hand against the great Servitors. Be assured that the Brotherhood formed by Pythagoras appeared dangerous in the eyes of the city guard. Paracelsus was a target for mockery and malignance. Thomas Vaughan seemed to be an outcast, and few wished to meet with him. Thus was the reign of darkness manifested."

"If one examines the reasons for the persecution of the best minds of different nations, and compares the reasons for the persecution and banishment of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, and others, one can observe that in each case the accusations and reasons for banishment were almost identical and unfounded. But in the following centuries full exoneration came, as if there had never been any defamation. It would be correct to conclude that such workers were too exalted for the consciousness of their contemporaries, and the sword of the executioner was ever ready to cut off a head held high. Pericles was recognized in his time only after people had reduced him to a sorry state. Only in that state could his fellow citizens accept him as an equal! A book should be written about the causes of the persecution of great individuals. By comparing the causes is it possible to trace the evil will."

"Pythagoras, it seems, did not only call the supreme Deity a monad, but also a tetrad, or tetractys... It is, in the golden verses, said to be the fountain of the eternal nature; and by Hierocles, the maker of all things, the intelligent god, the cause of the heavenly and sensible god, that is, of the animated world or heaven. The later Pythogoreans endeavour to give reasons why God should be called Tetractys, from certain mysteries in the number four; but... much more probable... this name was really nothing else but the tetragrammaton, or that proper name of the supreme God amongst the Hebrews, consisting of four letters; nor is it strange Pythagoras should be so well acquainted with the name Jehovah, since, besides travelling into other parts of the East, he is by Josephus, Porphyry, and others, to have conversed with the Hebrews also."

"These thinkers seem to consider that number is the principle both as matter for things and as constituting their attributes and permanent states."

"They thought they found in numbers, more than in fire, earth, or water, many resemblances to things which are and become; thus such and such an attribute of numbers is justice, another is soul and mind, another is opportunity, and so on; and again they saw in numbers the attributes and ratios of the musical scales. Since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be assimilated to numbers, while numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number."

"Whenever he heard a person who was making use of his symbols, he immediately took him into his circle, and made him a friend."

"It seems probable that the early Greeks were largely indebted to the Phoenicians for their knowledge of practical arithmetic or the art of calculation, and perhaps also learnt from them a few properties of numbers. It may be worthy of note that Pythagoras was a Phoenician; and according to Herodotus, but this is more doubtful, Thales was also of that race."

"But it is, however, in the teachings of Pythagoras that we find the closest and most frequent identities of teachings and argumentation [about as to the nature and position of the Gods], explained as due to Pythagoras himself having visited India and learned his philosophy there, as tradition asserts. In later centuries we find some peculiarly Sânkhyan and Buddhist ideas playing a prominent part in Gnostic thought."

"The school of the Pythagoras and those of the Neo-Platonists kept up the tradition for Greece, and we know that Pythagoras gained some of his learning in India, while Plato studied, and was initiated in the schools of Egypt. More precise information has been published of the Grecian schools than of others; the Pythagorean had pledged disciples as well as an outer discipline, the inner circle passing through three degrees during five years of probation."

"It is further interesting to remark that the finest characters among women with which ancient Greece presents us were formed in the school of Pythagoras, and the same is true of the men."

"The world is always ungrateful to its great men. Florence has built a statue to Galileo, but hardly even mentions Pythagoras. The former had a ready guide in the treatises of Copernicus, who had been obliged to contend against the universally established Ptolemaic system. But neither Galileo nor modern astronomy discovered the emplacement of the planetary bodies. Thousands of ages before, it was taught by the sages of Middle Asia, and brought thence by Pythagoras, not as a speculation, but as a demonstrated science. "The numerals of Pythagoras," says Porphyry, "were hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained all ideas concerning the nature of all things." Verily, then, to antiquity alone have we to look for the origin of all things. p. 31"

"Pythagoras called his Gnosis “the knowledge of things that are,” or ἡ γνῶσις τῶν ὄντων, and preserved that knowledge for his pledged disciples only: for those who could digest such mental food and feel satisfied; and he pledged them to silence and secrecy. Occult alphabets and secret ciphers are the development of the old Egyptian hieratic writings, the secret of which was, in the days of old, in the possession only of the Hierogrammatists, or initiated Egyptian priests."