Maxims Of The Masters

Confucius

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger. I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.  To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

Aristotle

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.  To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action. We make war that we may live in peace. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. Charity is no substitute for justice withheld. In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Marcus Cicero

Ability without honor is useless. As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind. Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself. Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty. Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain. I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability. I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.  If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains. Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable. Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children? Oh, the times! Oh, the manners! Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall. The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory. The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words. There are more men ennobled by study than by nature. True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank. You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.

Plutarch

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me. Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity. Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, "There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life." The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. The wildest colts make the best horses.

Francis Bacon

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green. He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other. Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The great end of life is not knowledge but action. The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses. There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

William James

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

Thomas Carlyle

All great peoples are conservative. Be not a slave of words. Every noble work is at first impossible. Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.  I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation? (Musicians) Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die. Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation. Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are. Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether. The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully. What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.

John Stuart Mill

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

Friedrich Nietzche

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

A confession has to be part of your new life.  A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.  A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him. It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played. Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement. Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it. Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness. You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded.