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- TITLE:FROM THE PAST WITH WISDOM
- PALETTE:0223 0779 099b 09a9
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- WITTICISMS OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
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- Quotes collected and translated by Peto
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- "No lotion can rejuvenate an old face."
- Arkhilokhos (670-620 BC)
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- "People believe that gods are like them. Ethiopians think gods are black and
- curly-haired, Thracians think gods are blue-eyed and red-haired."
- Xenophanes (580-485 BC)
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- "To pray the figures is like to talk with the wall."
- Herakleitos (544-483 BC)
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- "To get married or not to get married - you regret anyway."
- Sokrates (469-399 BC) about his wife Xanthippe.
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- "Always the same!"
- Xanthippe (469-399 BC) about her husband Sokrates.
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- "Sometimes it's good to do nothing."
- Hippokrates (460-377 BC)
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- "Actually there are nothing but atoms and emptiness in the world."
- Demokritos (460-370 BC)
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- "I'm going to show them that I'm alive."
- Alkibiades (450-404 BC) after he was sentenced to death.
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- "You shouldn't drink wine, if you want to keep your sense."
- Platon (427-347 BC)
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- "I wish every tree would bear fruit like that."
- Diogenes (412-323 BC) about a hanged woman.
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- "Athenians have invented two things: farming and law. Farming feeds them,
- but law is used by nobody."
- Aristoteles (384-322 BC)
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- "That stupid youngster can't threaten us."
- Demosthenes (384-322 BC) about Alexandros.
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- "Macedonia is too small to you."
- Philippos II (382-336 BC) to his son Alexandros.
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- "My father conquers everything before me. He doesn't leave anything to me."
- Alexandros (356-323 BC) as a child.
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- "One more this kind of victory, and I'll be lost."
- Pyrrhos (319-272 BC) after the battle of Ausculum.
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- "Don't confuse my circles!"
- Arkhimedes (287-212 BC) before he was killed and his circles were confused.
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- "I want to set Romans free of fear, because they don't let an old man die in
- peace."
- Hannibal (247-183 BC) before his suicide.
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- "Otherwise I assess that Carthage must be destroyed."
- Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC) after every speech which he gave.
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- "You seem to have very cold bathrooms for your guests."
- Iugurtha (160-104 BC) in Roman prison.
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- "Although the lion is away, it's horrible to be in his cave."
- Gaius Marius (156-86 BC) in Sulla's Rome.
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- "Now I have given more death sentences than I can remember."
- Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 BC)
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- "You must sail; nobody forces you to live."
- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106-48 BC)
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- "Thanks to your mother, you can't answer who your father is."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos.
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- "Brutus is going to wait, until my old skin has worn down."
- Gaius Iulius Caesar (100-44 BC) about the forewarnings.
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- "How can my kind of military commander be more indecisive than a woman?"
- Marcus Antonius (82-30 BC) about Kleopatra.
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- "Nothing has been harder than this short time I must have been without you."
- Kleopatra (69-30 BC) at the grave of Marcus Antonius.
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- "The play is over, applaud!"
- Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus alias Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) in his deathbed.
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- "A good shepherd shears his sheep, he doesn't skin them."
- Tiberius Claudius Nero (42 BC-37 AD) to the provincial governors.
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- "Live like I teach! Don't live like I live!"
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 AD)
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- "Money doesn't stink."
- Titus Flavius Vespasianus (9-79 AD)
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- "Let them hate, if they only fear."
- Gaius Iulius Caesar Germanicus alias Caligula (12-41 AD) about his subjects.
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- "What an artist passes away!"
- Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus (37-68 AD) before his suicide.
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- "If I was as young as Alexandros, I'd conquer as much as he did."
- Marcus Ulpius Traianus (53-117 AD)
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- "Finns are miraculously wild and terribly poor."
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus (55-116 AD)
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- "It's difficult to be without writing satirically."
- Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (55-130 AD)
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- "We have leaned against the falling wall."
- Publius Aelius Hadrianus (76-138 AD) about his successor Lucius Verus.
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- "Now, when we've got the whole empire, we've lost everything of our own."
- Titus Aurelius Antoninus Pius (86-161 AD) to his wife Faustina.
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- "Both Alexandros and his muledriver have got the same destiny after their
- death."
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD)
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- "Remember the soldiers, despise the others!"
- Lucius Septimius Severus (146-211 AD)
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- "If they don't ask me anything, they don't trust me. If they don't trust me,
- they suspect me. If they suspect me, they're afraid of me. If they're afraid
- of me, they hate me."
- Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus alias Caracalla (176-217 AD)
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- "If you saw how good cabbage I used to grow, you wouldn't talk me about that
- kind of troublesome jobs."
- Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (243-316 AD) after his retirement.
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- "They are not evil. They commit sin, because they don't understand. We have
- to take pity on them, not to hate them."
- Flavius Claudius Iulianus Apostata (332-363 AD) about Christians.
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- "Inside me there's a voice who shouts: hurry to Rome!"
- Alaric (370-410 AD) before he sacked Rome.
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- "Why do we work for the lousy Caesar, when we could have the whole Italy?"
- Odovacar (433-493 AD) before he dethroned the last Roman emperor Romulus
- Augustulus and finished Classical Antiquity.
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- EPILOGUE: TODAY'S MEMORY OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
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- "Sorry, I can't speak Latin."
- Dan Quayle (1946-? AD) in Latin America.
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