Intellectuals.

 "Over the past two hundred years the  influence of intellectuals has grown steadily.  Indeed, the rise of the secular intellectual has been a key factor in shaping the modern world... With the decline of clerical power in the eighteenth century, a new kind of mentor emerged to fill the vacuum and capture the ear of society.  The secular intellectual might be deist skeptic or atheist.  But he was just as ready as any pontiff or presbyter to tell mankind how to conduct its affairs.  He proclaimed, from the start, a special devotion to the interests of humanity and an evangelical duty to advance them by his teaching.  He brought to this self-appointed task a far more radical approach than his clerical predecessors.  He felt himself bound by no corpus of revealed religion.  The collective wisdom of the past, the legacy of tradition, the prescriptive codes of ancestral experience existed to be selectively followed or wholly rejected entirely as his own good sense might decide.  For the first time in human history, and with growing confidence and audacity, men arose to assert that they could diagnose the ills of society and cure them with their own unaided intellects:  more, that they could devise formulae whereby not merely the structure of society, but the fundamental habits of human beings could be transformed for the better."  (Paul Johnson, Intellectuals, p. 1) 

Paul Johnson writes of Intellectuals and their attitude that they are the moral arbiters of society.  Much of their moralism is to justify their own behavior.  However, because it is their belief and their behavior, it is superior morally to that of any other. 

• As Tolstoy puts it, "I have not yet met a single man who was as morally good as I, and who believed that I do not remember an instance in my life when I was not attracted to what is good and was not ready to sacrifice anything to it." 
• Quoting Johnson on Tolstoy, "His aim, as he put it, was 'To make of the spiritual realm of Christ a kingdom of this earth.'  He was himself as a part of an apostolic succession of intellectuals which included 'Moses, Isaiah, Confucius, the early Greeks, Buddha, Socrates, down to Paschal, Spinoza, Feurbach and all those, often unnoticed and unknown, who taking no teaching on trust, thought and spoke sincerely upon the meaning of life.'"  In other words, there are those among us who consider themselves so special, so set apart, so in tune with moral excellence (however they themselves define it) that they have the right...indeed, the duty, to impose it upon everyone else. 

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822

Homer:             800 BC - 700 BC Greek epic poet; wrote epic poems "Iliad", "Odyssey" Ideal of Excellence

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. Homer The Iliad

I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown. Homer, The Iliad

It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country.   Homer, The Iliad

The single best augury is to fight for one's country. Homer, The Iliad

Young men's minds are always changeable, but when an old man is concerned in a matter, he looks both before and after. Homer, The Iliad

May the gods grant you all things which your heart desires, and may they give you a husband and a home and gracious concord, for there is nothing greater and better than this -when a husband and wife keep a household in oneness of mind, a great woe to their enemies and joy to their friends, and win high renown.

Homer, The Odyssey

The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken. Homer, The Odyssey

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep. Homer, The Odyssey

Hesiod:                        800 BC Greek didactic poet; wrote poems "Works and Days", "Theogony"

He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.  Hesiod
Greek didactic poet (~800 BC)

Man's chiefest treasure is a sparing tongue.

Hesiod

In work there is no shame

                                    Shame is in idleness.

Theognis:        

Only a fool does a favor for the base;

You’d do as well to sow the gray salt sea.

But put a gentleman once in your debt,

You have a friend for life, he won’t forget.”

Solon:                          638 BC - 559 BC Greek lawgiver & politician in Athens; established Athenian democracy

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.

Solon

Themistocles: 527 BC - 460 BC Greek general & politician in Athens

I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man.

Themistocles, from Plutarch, Lives

Aeschylus:  525 BC - 456 BC Greek tragic dramatist; wrote   plays "Prometheus Bound", "Seven Against Thebes ", "The Persians", "The Suppliants", trilogy "Oresteia" ("Agamemnon", "Choephoroe", "Eumenides"); father of Greek tragedy

In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus
 

Time as he grows old teaches all things.

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Pericles:                      490 BC - 429 BC Greek politician in Athens  

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.

Pericles, from Plutarch, Lives

Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.

Pericles, from Plutarch, Lives  

Herodotus:       “The Father of History” 484 BC - 430 BC Greek historian & traveler; wrote "The Persian Wars"            

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the and causes parents to inter their children.

Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus                        

This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.

Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus  

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus  

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Herodotus, Inscription, New York City Post Office, adapted from Herodotus

                                  THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS, Volume 1
		http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/documents/1hofh10.htm 

                                  THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS, Volume 2                     
                             http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/documents/2hofh10.htm 

Cincinnatus (Lucius Quinctius)  called Cincinnatus because of his curly hair:  consul 460 and 480 BC Cincinnatus was considered a model of Roman virtue. He was a farmer above all, although when called to serve his country he did so without question -- briefly and without ambition. 

According to Livy, Cincinnatus (Quinctius) was past 80 at the time of his second call to be dictator for in a later Roman crisis in the wake of a grain distribution scandal:

"whilst those who knew nothing of the plot asked what disturbance or sudden outbreak of war called for the supreme authority of a dictator or required Quinctius , after reaching his eightieth year, to assume the government of the republic."

Thucydides:                 471 BC - 400 BC Greek historian

We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War

The History of the Peloponnesian War  http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/documents/plpwr10.htm

Sophocles:                   496 BC - 406 BC Greek tragic dramatist

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Sophocles

It is not righteousness to outrage
A brave man dead, not even though you hate him. Sophocles, Ajax

For God hates utterly
The bray of bragging tongues. Sophocles, Antigone

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him either. Sophocles, Antigone

Reason is God's crowning gift to man. Sophocles, Antigone

Show me the man who keeps his house in hand, He's fit for public authority.

Sophocles, Antigone

Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past. Sophocles, Trachiniae

Euripides:                    484 BC - 406 BC

Greek tragic dramatist; wrote plays "Medea", Hippolytus", "Andromache", "Supplices" (also "The Supplicants"), "The Trojan Women", "Orestes", "Iphigenia in Aulis" (also "Iphigenia at Aulis "), "Iphigenia in Tauris"  (The Internet Classics Archive | The Trojan Women by Euripides
http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/troj_women.html)
 

Circumstances rule men and not men rule circumstances. Euripides

Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. Euripides

Your very silence shows you agree.

Euripides

A sweet thing, for whatever time,
to revisit in dreams the dear dad we have lost.

Euripides, Alcestis, 438 B.C

Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife.

Euripides, Antigone

Leave no stone unturned.

Euripides, Heraclidae, circa 428 B.C.

Diogenes:                    412 BC - 323 BC

When asked what was the proper time for supper] If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can. Diogenes the Cynic, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Aristophanes:               450 BC - 388 BC            Greek Athenian comic
                                      dramatist  The Clouds and Lysistrata

This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought
Should contrive our fees to pilfer, on who for his native land
Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.

Aristophanes, Wasps, 422 B.C

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, 410 B.C.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. Aristophanes, Knights, 424 B.C.  

Xenophon:  431-354 BC Greek general, historian and essayist
(c. 430 BC - after 357 BC)

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/documents/cvlry10.htm

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.  

If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation.

Policy goes beyond strength, and contrivance before action; hence it is that direction is left to the commander, and execution to the soldier, who is not to ask Why? but to do what he is commanded.

Socrates:         469 BC - 399 BC  Greek philosopher in Athens ; subject of Plato's Socratic dialogues; founder & eponym of Socratic method; teacher of Plato; executed for corrupting the young   
More on Socrates life and teachings:  http://www.san.beck.org/SOCRATES1-Life.html

                                 “…The unexamined life is not worth living.”

"If a rich man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it."              

"Let him that would move the world, first move himself."

Plato:               427 BC - 347 BC The Republic  

Greek author & philosopher in Athens

        "I declare justice is nothing but the stronger"  Thrasymachus says in                 Plato's Republic 338 c [W.H.D. Rouse translation, Great Plato,                 Mentor             Books, 1956, p. 137.

                         Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Necessity, who is the mother of invention. Plato, The Republic

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Plato, The Republic

Only the dead have seen the end of war

Aristotle:           384 BC - 322 BC Greek critic, philosopher,   physicist, & zoologist

A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Demosthenes:  384 BC - 322 BC  Greek orator & politician in Athens ; suicide                                    

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

 

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.

He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.

The easiest thing of all is to deceive one's self; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

The fact speak for themselves.                                                                           

The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

Menander:                   342 BC - 292 BC Greek comic dramatist; wrote plays "Epiptrepontes", "Perikeiromene", "Dyskolos"

He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.

Let bravery be thy choice, but not bravado.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

The sword the body wounds, sharp words the mind.

Riches cover a multitude of woes.

Menander, Lady of Andros

The man who runs may fight again.

Menander, Monostikoi (Single Lines)

Whom the gods love dies young.

Menander, The Double Deceiver

Deus ex machina [A god from the machine]

Menander, The Woman Possessed with a Divinity

I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.

Menander, Unidentified fragment

Epicurus:                      341 BC - 270 BC  Greek Philosopher founder & eponym of Epicureanism; preached pleasure as sole good & goal of morality

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.

Epicurus, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

Epicurus, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.

Epicurus, 300 B.C.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.

Epicurus

Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.

Epicurus

Euclid :  300 BC  Greek geometer.  Wrote book on geometry that remained the major textbook until the last century.

                                    A line is length without breadth (Elementa)

                                    The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

Archimedes, who followed closely upon the first Ptolemy makes mention of Euclid .  They say that Ptolemy once asked him if there were a shorted way to study geometry than the Elements, to which he replied: “There is no royal road to geometry.”

Archimedes:  287 BC - 212 BC  Greek inventor, mathematician, & physicist; discovered principles of buoyancy & the lever; discovered differential calculus; computed pi; killed

Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth. Archimedes, 300 B.C  On the lever in Pappus Synagoge

Any solid lighter than a fluid will, if placed in the fluid, be so far immersed that the weight of the solid will be equal to the weight of the fluid displaced.
On floating bodies I, prop 5.

Eureka , Eureka .
I have found [it].
Vitruvius, De Architectura ix, 215

Noli turbare circulos meos.
Do not disturb my circles!
Last words. Sometimes reported as:
Soldier, stand away from my diagram.

Plautus:  254 BC - 184 BC         Roman comic dramatist; wrote plays "Amphitryon", "Captivi", "Persa", "Miles Gloriosus", "Aulularia", "Trinummus", "Rudens", "Mercator", "Curculio", "Stichus"

Practice yourself what you preach.

Titus Maccius Plautus, Asinaria

No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.

Titus Maccius Plautus, Miles Gloriosus

What is yours is mine, and all mine is yours.

Titus Maccius Plautus, Trinummus

Polybius:                      205 BC - 118 BC Greek historian

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius, History

Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.

Polybius, History

Terence:                      185 BC - 159 BC Roman comic dramatist

Nothing is said that has not been said that has not been said before.Terence

So many men so many questions.
(Quot Homines Tot Sententiae) Terence

There is a demand in these days for men who an make wrong appear right. Terence

Charity begins at home.

Terence, Andria

Too much liberty corrupts us all.

Terence           

Moderation in all things. Terence, Andria

In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before. Terence, Eunuchus

Julius Caesar:  100 BC - 44 BC Roman author, general, & politician; member of 1st Triumvirate; defeated Pompey at battle of Pharsalus 048b

Veni, vidi, vici.
[I came, I saw, I conquered]

Julius Caesar, from Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars

Et tu, Brute.
[You also, Brutus.]

Julius Caesar, from Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars

Alea jacta est.
[The die is cast.}  Plutarch - Caesar
Caesar upon crossing the Rubicon.

It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking. Julius Caesar, from Plutarch, Lives,
Roman author, general, & politician (100 BC - 44 BC)

All Gaul is divided into three parts (De bello Gallico I.1)  

Men willingly believe what they wish. (Ibid. III.18)