Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.

The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand they are rough.

When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, “Not to unlearn what you have learned!”

Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.

The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.

When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.

Xenophanes speaks thus:-And no man knows distinctly anything,And no man ever will.