Lao Tzu (Daoist Founding theologian, c. 6th and 5th century BCE)
“Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way.”
John Skylitzes (Byzantine Historian, 1040-1101)
“Reading provokes recollection; recollection nourishes and expands memory, just as, quite the contrary, negligence and laziness provoke forgetfulness which darkens and confuses the memory of what has happened in the past.”
Second Epistle of Clement (written in the 2nd century CE)
“This is the reason people cannot find peace. They give way to human fears, and prefer the pleasures of the present to the promises of the future.”
Marcus Aurelius (c. 121-180)
“Be not querulous, be Content with little, be kind, be free; avoid all superfluity, all vain prattling; be magnanimous.”
Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BCE)
“What good is it if I own lots of things but accomplish nothing?”
Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE)
“Fear does not generally admit of mercy in extreme danger.”
Chuang Tzu (4th and 3rd Century BCE)
“The government of the enlightened King? His achievements blanket the world but appear not to be of his own doing. His transforming influence touches the ten thousand things but the people do not depend on him. With him there is no promotion or praise – he lets everything find its own way.”
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
“I would rather have the wrath of the world upon me than the wrath of God.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
“He and I had made a serious Agreement, that the one who happened first to die, should if possible make a friendly Visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in the Separate State. But he never fulfill’d his Promise.”
