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

Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.

Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals.

Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.

Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.

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

A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.