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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 924

 
 
Plutarch. (A.D. 46?–A.D. c. 120) (continued)
 
8894
    Said Periander, “Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.” 1
          The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men. 14.
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    Socrates said, “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.” 2
          How a Young Man ought to hear Poems. 4.
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    And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero’s crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, “I have found it! Eureka!”
          Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus. 11.
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    Said Scopas of Thessaly, “We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.” 3
          Of the Love of Wealth.
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    That proverbial saying, “Ill news goes quick and far.”
          Of Inquisitiveness.
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    A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, “I do not believe you can do as much.” “True,” said he, “but every goose can.”
          Remarkable Speeches.
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    Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
          Of Hearing. 6.
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    It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration,—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
          Of Hearing. 6.
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    Antiphanes said merrily, that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon
 
Note 1.
Spare your breath to cool your porridge.—Francis Rabelais: Works, book v. chap. xxviii. [back]
Note 2.
See Fielding, Quotation 10.

He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.—Diogenes Laertius: Socrates, xiv. [back]
Note 3.
See Holmes, Quotation 28. [back]