dots-menu
×

Home  »  Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men  »  Pythagoras

S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Pythagoras

  • [The celebrated philosopher; born in Samos, about 600 B.C.; visited foreign countries, and settled in Crotona, Italy, where he founded his brotherhood, which soon became the controlling power in the state; according to some accounts, he perished during an attack upon one of his meetings, or else died at Metapontum after his sect had been expelled from Crotona.]
  • Nil admirari.

  • The caution against undue enthusiasm, which is contained in the “Epistles” of Horace, I. 6, 1, and is attributed by Plutarch to Pythagoras; called by Dr. Arnold “the Devil’s favorite text.”
  • As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom.

  • “When men are pure,” says Disraeli, “laws are useless: when men are corrupt, laws are broken.”—Contarini Fleming.
  • Friendship—one soul in two bodies.

  • “True friendship between man and man,” says Plato, “is infinite and immortal.”
  • Poke not the fire with a sword.