There are many marvellous stories told of Pherecydes. For it is said that he was walking along the seashore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before his eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one.

The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides.

Arcesilaus had a peculiar habit while conversing of using the expression, "My opinion is," and "So and so will not agree to this.

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.

One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.

Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death.

Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.