Inspiration from The Past (Part II).
April 30, 2018

On Happiness:
- Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. (Aristotle)
- Happiness depends upon ourselves. (Aristotle)
- The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage. (Thucydides)
- There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. (Epictetus)
- Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not, remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. (Epicurus)
On Leadership:
- Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. (Euripides)
- He that always gives way to others will end up having no principles of his own. (Aesop)
- What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. (Pericles)
On Peak Performance:
- Well begun is half done. (Aristotle)
- First, have a definite, clear, practical idea; a goal, an objective. Second have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials and methods. Third adjust all your means to that end. (Aristotle)
- The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory in surmounting it. (Epicurus)
- You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour. (Aristotle)
- Success is dependent on effort. (Sophocles)
- To find fault is easy, to do better may be difficult. (Plutarch)
On Listening:
- Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. (Plutarch)
- Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools because they have to say something. (Plato)
On Life:
- An honest man is always a child. (Socrates)
- Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. (Theophrastus)
- Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds. (Democritus)
- Raising children is an uncertain thing, success is reached only after a lifetime of battle and worry. (Democritus)
- All religions must be tolerated for every man must get to heaven in his own way. (Epictetus)
- One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. (Plato)
- Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings. (Diogenes)
KR