Page 925

Plutarch. (A.D. 46?–A.D. c. 120) (continued)

as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer. 1

Of Man’s Progress in Virtue.

8903

As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.

Of Man’s Progress in Virtue.

8904

What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man’s plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.

Of Fortune.

8905

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.

Of Fortune.

8906

Alexander was wont to say, “Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great.

8907

When the candles are out all women are fair. 2

Conjugal Precepts.

8908

Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead. 3

Whether ’t was rightfully said, Live Concealed.

8909

Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. 4

Of Banishment.

8910

Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.

Symposiacs. Book viii. Question viii.

8911

Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.

Symposiacs. Book viii. Question ix.

Note 1.
In the “Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (Rudolphe Erich Raspe), stories gathered from various sources, is found the story of sound being frozen for a time in a post-horn, which when thawed gave a variety of tunes. A somewhat similar account is found in Rabelais, book iv. chaps. lv. lvi., referring to Antiphanes. [back]

Note 2.
See Heywood, Quotation 32. [back]

Note 3.
See Burton, Quotation 9. [back]

Note 4.
See Garrison, Quotation 3. [back]

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