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Praxis Grammatica


Showing the true and authentic use of declensions and conjugations, nicely organized for solid and rapid acquisition of a knowledge of the essential grammatical components of meaning.
There are also attached a substantial number of both famous sayings and rather well-chosen witticisms.
For the use of the students of Magdalene at Oxford 

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The very greatest depends upon the very smallest.

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London


Printed by John Havilan
with funding from Thomas Pavier
1623

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To the Kind Reader.
  

I am entirely in agreement with you, my reader-friend.  You have come to the correct conclusion. These trifles that are coming out are quite unworthy (I am only speaking about this Praxis).   Yes, that is the way it is.  And you wouldn't spoil it if you take a look at the contents.  But if you consider their goal, you would think differently. The Praxis I have spoken about is especially fashioned for the use of children who are still stammering, ones who have crept from their cribs for the first time.  Certainly I think that for them it is going to be not only useful and handy, but also well-suited.  As you see, I have decided to add to it certain rather elegant and witty sayings carefully researched and culled. In this material you will find quite a refined kind of speech.  But even more, I have added to these sayings quite a good number of apophthegms from Macrobius, Plutarch, and also from that hugely prolific Desiderius Erasmus, both funny and serious items fetched out from their store.  These should from time to time make palatable and interesting those bothersome chores that tend to creep in on teachers.  But no, let me stop so that I don't seem to have made a preface longer than it ought to be for these piddling items and to have attached it to the front of mere prattle. Farewell.
Yours, J.H.

[ 1 ] I am going to have lunch at your place today.
[ 2 ] You are a generous host.
[ 3 ] That one is a glutton for books.
[ 4 ] This tune is very charming.
[ 5 ] This bird is unfledged.
[ 6 ] This wall is brick.
[ 7 ] This church is richly adorned.
[ 8 ] This boy is a very pleasant fellow.
[ 9 ] Your brothers are highly educated men.
[ 10 ] You are the winners, we the losers.
[ 11 ] A single man is like no man.
[ 12 ] I was not in class today.
[ 13 ] Yesterday you were not at church.
[ 14 ] Your brother was not in our orchard, nor was anyone else.
[ 15 ] We were at your house.
[ 16 ] You were at our house.
[ 17 ] Your parents were at my house today.
[ 18 ] Today I was not in class, nor were you.
[ 19 ] You are the same as you ever were.
[ 20 ] This boy was always better than his brother.
[ 21 ] Yesterday we were in your garden.
[ 22 ] You were in the church of Mary Magdalene.
[ 23 ] Here were all the bushels of cherries and apples.
[ 24 ] Yesterday no one had been in the reception-room, as far as I know.
[ 25 ] The previous week you had been on our walkways.
[ 26 ] Your brother had been at my place the day before yesterday.
[ 27 ] My sisters had not been in the dining room the day before.
[ 28 ] I will be more careful in the future.
[ 29 ] Tomorrow morning you will be at my place.
[ 30 ] This boy will some day be a learned man.
[ 31 ] Hereafter (with God's help) we will be more careful.
[ 32 ] You will be the people by far the dearest to me.
[ 33 ] Friends who love sincerely will be by far the dearest to me.
[ 34 ] Be devout and devoted.
[ 35 ] Every student should be attentive to the lesson!
[ 36 ] Be faithful, and you will be happy.
[ 37 ] Let all the boys be in class tomorrow at dawn!
[ 38 ] Let these things be this way.
[ 39 ] Your brother is asking me to be zealous.
[ 40 ] I ask you to be hungry [lit: eager] for good reading.
[ 41 ] May this night be calm and very lucky for you.
[ 42 ] The teachers are asking us students to be more attentive next year than we were in the last one.
[ 43 ] I urge you to be very faithful to your close friends.
[ 44 ] Encourage your classmates to be at class early.
[ 45 ] I used to ask your brother to be my friend, just as he always was before.
[ 46 ] You used to ask us to be your friends.
[ 47 ] Your father would ask me to be your study-partner.
[ 48 ] My mother asked my teacher to be a bit nicer to me.
[ 49 ] The teachers rather often encouraged their students to be really studious.
[ 50 ] Time and again I have asked you to think of me [lit: to be mindful of me].
[ 51 ] Be good for your own and a credit to them. [felix = favorable, successful, fruitful]
[ 52 ] If I am good, I will be blessed.
[ 53 ] If anyone becomes needy, that person should work.
[ 54 ] If you are reverent, God will love you in a special way.
[ 55 ] If we are not careful, the teacher will catch us playing dice here.
[ 56 ] I wish this boy were my schoolmate!
[ 57 ] I wonder whether these pens and pipes are mine.
[ 58 ] I do not doubt that you are an honorable boy.
[ 59 ] If I had been in church, I would have heard the sermon.
[ 60 ] If you had been at our house, you would have eaten fruits and nuts.
[ 61 ] If your brother had been educated, he would have accepted the gold-plated pen from me.
[ 62 ] If we had been in the King's garden, we would have seen very delightful roses and violets.
[ 63 ] If he had been at class, the teacher would have given you four cherries and three pears.
[ 64 ] If Peter and William and George and the teacher's eldest son had been together with me downtown, I would have bought several arrows for each of them.
[ 65 ] If I'm with you for a while, I will teach you some rules of Grammar.
[ 66 ] I wonder if you were in the forest yesterday.
[ 67 ] Father does not know where you are now.
[ 68 ] I do not know who this stranger is.
[ 69 ] I hear that your brothers are good young men.
[ 70 ] When I was in class yesterday, I had said you would pay the penalty because of your carelessness.
[ 71 ] When I had been at your mother's three days before, she ordered me to move against you.
[ 72 ] When you were at Paris, you left me crying in the cradle.
[ 73 ] I hear that you are a good boy.
[ 74 ] I hear that you are a good boy.
[ 75 ] I hear your hunting dogs are ravenous.
[ 76 ] I believe you were an eloquent orator.
[ 77 ] I believe that you were an eloquent orator.
[ 78 ] I believe these pears were not to your liking.
[ 79 ] I believe that these pears were not to your liking.
[ 80 ] I hope I will be your guest.
[ 81 ] I hope that tomorrow I will be your guest.
[ 82 ] I believe your sister will be a good woman.
[ 83 ] I hope we will be educated men.
[ 84 ] I hope that we will be educated men.
[ 85 ] I hope this plant is healthful.
[ 86 ] I love God the heavenly Father who made me.
[ 87 ] You love nothing as much as Jesus Christ your Savior.
[ 88 ] She loves me just as if I were his brother.
[ 89 ] We love you in turn.
[ 90 ] You love elegant dinners.
[ 91 ] I consider those people happy who love integrity.
[ 92 ] I used to like you before, when you were interested.
[ 93 ] You used to love the good arts, I remember; why don't you love them any more?
[ 94 ] She used to like me when I was a boy.
[ 95 ] We loved your sisters when they were at our place.
[ 96 ] You liked pears when you were young.
[ 97 ] Our teachers used to like your brothers since they were interested in learning.
[ 98 ] I have loved you from childhood.
[ 99 ] You have loved me in return.
[ 100 ] Your brother always liked the bow and arrows.
[ 101 ] We have always loved those who are like ourselves.
[ 102 ] You liked me for the very reason that I liked you.
[ 103 ] Those who act rightly love the light.
[ 104 ] I had loved you, but you had not loved me back.
[ 105 ] If you will like me, I will like you back.
[ 106 ] Good people will like good people.
[ 107 ] Farewell, and keep me in your affection [lit: love me].
[ 108 ] Love devotion, and the liberal arts.
[ 109 ] I ask you to love your parents.
[ 110 ] You ask me to like your brother.
[ 111 ] I will encourage him to like good books.
[ 112 ] I have asked you rather frequently to be good to Nicholas your classmate.
[ 113 ] Love devotion, and you will be happy.
[ 114 ] Every boy should respect and have a warm regard for his teacher.
[ 115 ] Let us love God and our neighbor.
[ 116 ] I wonder whether you like me the same way I like you.
[ 117 ] I would like you, if you were such as you seem.
[ 118 ] If they liked me, I would like them back.
[ 119 ] If I had liked your brother, he would also have liked me.
[ 120 ] We would have loved your sisters if they had been good.
[ 121 ] If you like me, you will have given me a distinct pleasure.
[ 122 ] I wish I had always loved devotion!
[ 123 ] I wish people would always love God.
[ 124 ] You have heard I like your friends.
[ 125 ] You have heard that I like your friends.
[ 126 ] You know I liked Peter your brother.
[ 127 ] I hear these women have always loved their husbands.
[ 128 ] I hear that these women always have loved their husbands.
[ 129 ] I hope I am going to like good books.
[ 130 ] I hope that I am going to like good books.
[ 131 ] My hope is you will like me.
[ 132 ] My hope is that you will like me.
[ 133 ] I have to love.
[ 134 ] By liking and praising the boy, you will make him really eager to learn.
[ 135 ] My brother has the intention of liking the liberal arts.
[ 136 ] I am coming to court your sister.
[ 137 ] I am coming to court your sister.
[ 138 ] I am making a good effort to like more intensely the ones that you are praising.
[ 139 ] I am coming to praise your pens.
[ 140 ] I am coming to praise your pens.
[ 141 ] I am coming to praise your pens.
[ 142 ] Your brother is worthy of love.
[ 143 ] This subject is easy to like.
[ 144 ] Boys who love devotion are dear to God.
[ 145 ] God gives all good things to those who love him [lit: to those loving him].
[ 146 ] Whoever is really going to love himself should first love God.
[ 147 ] We are coming to praise your class.
[ 148 ] I am loved by my father when I am good and careful.
[ 149 ] Our countrymen are loved by yours.
[ 150 ] A devout person is loved by God and the holy angels.
[ 151 ] I was liked by the teacher when I was in your class.
[ 152 ] I was liked by your father, since I liked you also.
[ 153 ] Good and useful books have always been liked by good men.
[ 154 ] Good pens had always been liked by this boy.
[ 155 ] You will be loved by God and by people if you are devout and good.
[ 156 ] Like your classmates, so that you will be liked by them in return.
[ 157 ] We would be liked by your brothers if we would give them pears and apples and cherries every day.
[ 158 ] If you had been liked by us, undoubtedly we would have been liked by you in turn.
[ 159 ] I wonder if I am liked by you and your father.
[ 160 ] I think teaching and virtue are loved by all people.
[ 161 ] I see I have been very much liked by your parents.
[ 162 ] I see that I have been very much liked by your parents.
[ 163 ] I hope I am going to be liked by you.
[ 164 ] I hope that I am going to be liked by you.
[ 165 ] I believe this writing case will be liked by you.
[ 166 ] I believe that this writing case will be liked by you.
[ 167 ] I think these apples are going to be liked by my classmates.
[ 168 ] I think that these pears are going to be liked by my classmates.
[ 169 ] We ought to like good books. [lit: Good books are to be liked by us.]
[ 170 ] We ought to love God's commands.
[ 171 ] I teach good boys willingly.
[ 172 ] Why do you not teach your brother?
[ 173 ] Yesterday I was teaching your brother the first declension.
[ 174 ] I have often taught you literature.
[ 175 ] I had taught your brother many Latin words, but he forgot all of them.
[ 176 ] I will teach you the same thing that my father taught me.
[ 177 ] Teach me, please, those things that I do not know.
[ 178 ] Whoever is more learned than the others, let him teach the rest.
[ 179 ] I am being strongly begged by your brother to teach him the Latin declensions.
[ 180 ] I was begging your brother to teach me the Latin language.
[ 181 ] I do not know who is now teaching your brother literature.
[ 182 ] I don't at all know why you are still teaching uncaring and stubborn boys.
[ 183 ] You do not know if you have correctly taught me the art of shooting arrows.
[ 184 ] Since you are teaching me, I will teach you in return.
[ 185 ] When our teacher was teaching us yesterday in class, your mother was asking him pardon for your playing around.
[ 186 ] I wish your father, who is an educated man, had taught me Latin grammar!
[ 187 ] When Lucilius had taught my brother for three months, he went away to the country immediately.
[ 188 ] If I teach you your lesson, you will give me four or three or at least two apples.
[ 189 ] You see I teach you faithfully.
[ 190 ] You see that I teach you faithfully.
[ 191 ] I really am amazed that you have not taught your son Peter the Lord's Prayer.
[ 192 ] Believe I will teach your brothers faithfully.
[ 193 ] Believe that I will teach your brothers faithfully.
[ 194 ] I go to teach seven classes of boys.
[ 195 ] This matter is difficult to teach.
[ 196 ] I have to teach several strangers for free, because of the fact that they are poor.
[ 197 ] I hear you are going to teach some young noblemen.
[ 198 ] I hear that you are going to teach some young noblemen.
[ 199 ] I will go to teach your sister music.
[ 200 ] I am coming to teach you arithmetic.
[ 201 ] By teaching others you will teach yourself.
[ 202 ] Three, or at any rate four days ago I saw your sister teaching both my sisters.
[ 203 ] The work of the one teaching is unpleasant and full of worry.
[ 204 ] The one who is going to teach another should first teach himself / herself.
[ 205 ] We are being taught the Latin language by you.
[ 206 ] I was being taught the art of writing in my youth, but without any fruit.
[ 207 ] We boys were still being taught many Latin words.
[ 208 ] You have been taught to write out a letter to your father.
[ 209 ] This girl has been taught to dance.
[ 210 ] My sisters had been taught to weave and to hold the wool and the web.
[ 211 ] Now perhaps I will be taught these things by this man, which to this point I have been taught by no one.
[ 212 ] If you would be taught the Latin language by me, you will give me a large fee.
[ 213 ] If I were being taught the fisherman's art by you, I would give you a hundred ripe apples.
[ 214 ] You understand I am being taught the Greek language.
[ 215 ] You understand that I am being taught the Greek language.
[ 216 ] I heard you were being taught foreign languages.
[ 217 ] I have heard your brothers have not yet been taught the French language.
[ 218 ] I have heard that your brothers have not yet been taught the French language.
[ 219 ] I hope I will be taught the Greek language.
[ 220 ] I hope that I will be taught the Greek language.
[ 221 ] I hope your sisters will be taught the art of weaving.
[ 222 ] I hope that your sisters will be taught the art of weaving.
[ 223 ] I gladly read your letter which you are writing to me.
[ 224 ] I was reading some letters to your brother which I myself was carrying to him the day before.
[ 225 ] Most gladly we read the letter which you had so kindly sent to us yesterday.
[ 226 ] As soon as I had ready yesterday's letter, I immediately wrote back to you.
[ 227 ] Tomorrow I will read the letter that I got from a certain person who lives in this neighborhood.
[ 228 ] Read Cicero, the supreme orator, or if you prefer, Terence, the most polished author.
[ 229 ] Quite frequently you beg me to read Caesar, the purest writer of history.
[ 230 ] You used to ask me to read Plautus, the lighthearted comic playwright.
[ 231 ] You are not unaware I gladly read the Colloquies of Erasmus and the Dialogues of Corderius, written elegantly in Latin.
[ 232 ] I hear you have read the Letters of Politianus, which Lipsius praises so much.
[ 233 ] I hope you will read Ovid and Virgil, the princes of the Latin poets.
[ 234 ] I have come here to read your father's letter.
[ 235 ] This book is most pleasant to read: I do not remember that I have ever seen a more pleasant one.
[ 236 ] This line is very difficult to read.
[ 237 ] You should read the rather elegant letters.
[ 238 ] I am quite eager to read this book.
[ 239 ] I came here to read.
[ 240 ] By reading deeply, not widely, you will make progress daily.
[ 241 ] Boys who often read the lessons easily remember them.
[ 242 ] I hope you will read your sermon.
[ 243 ] I hope that you will read your sermon.
[ 244 ] In class I am often put on the list of babblers.
[ 245 ] A well-written letter is read with pleasure.
[ 246 ] This book was being read two days ago by your mother.
[ 247 ] You have often been put on the absentee-lists.
[ 248 ] This packet of writings has not yet been read by my teacher.
[ 249 ] Your letter had been read early enough by my brother.
[ 250 ] I will not be put on the absentee-lists today since I was always in class this week.
[ 251 ] Around noon your composition will be read.
[ 252 ] I wonder whether my compositions are being gladly read by my friends.
[ 253 ] If I were as often put on the absentee-list as you and your brothers are, no doubt I would be whipped by the teacher.
[ 254 ] I hear many letters are being read by you.
[ 255 ] I hear that many letters are being read by you.
[ 256 ] I hear your recently printed pamphlet has been read by the prince.
[ 257 ] I hear that your recently printed pamphlet has been read by the prince.
[ 258 ] Today I saw several compositions brought from Oxford or London to your father had been carefully read.
[ 259 ] This book should be read by us all.
[ 260 ] By reading Cicero you will become more learned every day.
[ 261 ] By reading the letters of Pliny and Politianus you will sharpen your wit considerably and you will make your speech more polished.
[ 262 ] Nothing more willingly do I hear read than the Word of God.
[ 263 ] Quite unwillingly do we hear those things that we do not like.
[ 264 ] Yesterday I heard your apples are ripe enough.
[ 265 ] I heard my fellow students reading their lessons.
[ 266 ] With great alarm, your sisters had heard your shouts when you were in the garden.
[ 267 ] I will listen to you willingly if you have anything which you would tell me.
[ 268 ] We will hear your excuse if you can produce any fair and fitting one.
[ 269 ] Listen to me first; I will hear you afterward.
[ 270 ] Gladly listen to holy sermons.
[ 271 ] Speak more clearly so that I might hear you better.
[ 272 ] I would most willingly hear you, if there were just a bit of leisure left over from my business.
[ 273 ] We would most willingly hear a speech of yours if you ever adorned one with citations.
[ 274 ] If I hear you are studious and diligent, you will get from me as a gift five cherries and ten raisins.
[ 275 ] When I had heard the story, I started to wonder, and to scold the lying boy.
[ 276 ] I believe you have not heard my trumpet playing sweetly.
[ 277 ] I believe that you have not heard my trumpet playing sweetly.
[ 278 ] I think we are going to hear your brother reciting his poems for the next eight days.
[ 279 ] I go, no I hurry to hear the holy sermon that is being given in Saint Peter's church at ten o'clock.
[ 280 ] Actually, what you are telling me is quite pleasant to hear.
[ 281 ] I must listen attentively to whatever your father says.
[ 282 ] The time for hearing the sermon is almost at hand.
[ 283 ] I have come to class to listen and learn.
[ 284 ] Good boys are eager to hear their teacher.
[ 285 ] By listening to the Word of God, you will get an accurate account of the way to arrive at eternal salvation.
[ 286 ] I hope I am going to hear a Latin comedy in your hall.
[ 287 ] My sister rose shortly before dawn to hear the prayers read in the dining room.
[ 288 ] I am not being heard by everyone who is now present.
[ 289 ] The Word of God should be attentively heard by those who want to attain salvation through Christ.
[ 290 ] The teacher did not listen to me [lit: I was not heard by the teacher] when I wanted to tell the story about the poultry rooster.
[ 291 ] My father listened to your brother [lit: Your brother was heard by my father] when he told how many fish he had taken from our lake.
[ 292 ] Those who hear us against their will will never properly listen to us. [Lit: We will never be heard correctly by those who listen unwillingly.]
[ 293 ] If you were listening to me, we would listen to you in turn. [Lit: If I were being heard by you, you in turn would be heard by us.]
[ 294 ] I think studious young people listen to an eloquent and cheery speaker with great pleasure. [Lit: I think an eloquent and merry speaker is heard with great pleasure by studious young people.]
[ 295 ] I believe the best speakers were poorly heard by those who look down on eloquence and consider all the arts worthless.
[ 296 ] I hope my teacher will listen to me carefully when I come to class. [Lit: I hope I will be carefully heard by my teacher when I come to class.]
[ 297 ] I believe my father will not listen to your mother. [Lit: I believe your mother will not be heard by my father.]
[ 298 ] Heard by the Judge, I returned home.
[ 299 ] The Word of God should be heard attentively and reverently.
[ 300 ] Your eagerness to hear the holy sermon pleases me immensely.
[ 301 ] The remedy for life is endurance.
[ 302 ] The spice of life is friendship.
[ 303 ] The sun of life is Wisdom.
[ 304 ] Every one of the greatest delights of life is insipid and disagreeable.
[ 305 ] Many have too much; no one enough.
[ 306 ] One day of the wise person is to be preferred to the longest eternity of the foolish.
[ 307 ] That person who lacks things is not poor, but the one who is needy or full of desire is.
[ 308 ] Don't laugh much nor at many things.
[ 309 ] Be a bit cautious at someone else's tears: a bit cheered at someone else's smile.
[ 310 ] The magnet of love is love.
[ 311 ] There is nothing that so draws out love as love does. Hence that saying of Martial, "To be loved, love."
[ 312 ] There is a certain natural conjunction and harmony in things, so that no one hates that one by whom he is loved.
[ 313 ] It becomes him who gives not to remember the favor: but it becomes him who receives not to look upon the gift as much as the soul of the giver.
[ 314 ] For that reason they imagine the Graces are three: two never look back, and the third always looks upon the first two.
[ 315 ] The good is good for the good and for the bad: the bad is good neither for the bad nor for the good.
[ 316 ] Before you begin, there is the need to deliberate, and when you have finished deliberating, there is the need to act at the right moment.
[ 317 ] Give yourself totally to the signs and leadership of God in this campaign of life, and submit to commands and follow example.
[ 318 ] Do not do what you do not wish to be done.
[ 319 ] Moderate strolling restores the body; immoderate strolling undoes it.
[ 320 ] What fortune has supplied, it will remove.
[ 321 ] What nature has loaned, she will seek back.
[ 322 ] What your virtue has gotten, you will keep.
[ 323 ] It does not matter how long you have lived, but how well. The life that is good, is long.
[ 324 ] You ought to look down on what you can lose.
[ 325 ] Yield to the people, but do not obey them. For one should not fight with the crowd, a many-headed beast, but neither should one assent to its opinions.
[ 326 ] What is important is not the way-by-which but the where-unto.
[ 327 ] In every place, in every circumstance we ought to act correctly and arrive there, where we are heading.
[ 328 ] Pleasure is like a bee; when it has poured forth the honey, it flees.
[ 329 ] Let neither a wet nor a dry drunkenness keep you down.
[ 330 ] What is bought by prayers is dear.
[ 331 ] I prefer to buy than to beg.
[ 332 ] Prayers are precious payment.
[ 333 ] There is no cure for the bite of slander.
[ 334 ] Good fortune ought to be managed by art, planning, prudence, and creative intelligence; an angry fortune ought to be pounded back with great strength, and overcome and trounced with an unbeaten spirit.
[ 335 ] Be a manager over good things and a winner over bad ones.
[ 336 ] Our studies should not be interrupted so much as relaxed.
[ 337 ] Christ is the aim of our life: he is the beginning, he the end; from him, everything takes its start, toward him everything stretches. We should fasten ourselves to him, if we wish to be happy, with no nail other than our mind itself.
[ 338 ] It is noble to have the ability to do harm and the will not to.
[ 339 ] Being silent in the right way and speaking in the right way belong to the same art.
[ 340 ] The more one is permitted to do, the less one should want to.
[ 341 ] Pardon others many things, yourself nothing.
[ 342 ] I don't want a junior person to fear me, and I don't want a senior one to scorn me.
[ 343 ] Live mindful of death so that you might be mindful of salvation.
[ 344 ] Overcome all sorrows either with your spirit or with a friend.
[ 345 ] Praise your friend in public, but when he goes wrong, reproach him in private.
[ 346 ] It is a terrible pain if you dread what you are unable to conquer.
[ 347 ] The mind that knows how to fear, knows how to approach safely.
[ 348 ] Love your father if he is fair: if not, put up with him.
[ 349 ] If you tolerate the vices of your friend, you make them your own.
[ 350 ] If you are quarreling with a drunken person, you are wounding an absent party.
[ 351 ] The one who hopes for a long life for a miser is wishing for the worst evil for him/her.
[ 352 ] Good times get you friends, bad ones test them.
[ 353 ] The better the gambler is, the worse he is. 
[ 354 ] Having is better than longing to have.
[ 355 ] If on your own you offer what is needed, the gift is twice as good.
[ 356 ] The one who doesn't know how to do a favor is wrong to look for one.
[ 357 ] To accept a favor is to sell your freedom.
[ 358 ] You sin twice when you render service to a person who is sinning.
[ 359 ] That person receives a favor by doing one for a worthy person.
[ 360 ] The one who says he/she has done a favor is seeking one.
[ 361 ] The linking of the heart is the closest kinship.
[ 362 ] Mutual kindness binds tighter than blood.
[ 363 ] The one who often performs a kindness teaches how to return it.
[ 364 ] That one wins twice who overcomes himself/herself in a victory: first one's foe, then one's spirit.
[ 365 ] If good ideas [lit: things that have been thought out well] get away, they are not gone for good.
[ 366 ] Whoever spares the bad hurts the good.
[ 367 ] The cure for any sorrow is endurance.
[ 368 ] Having a good talker as a companion while walking on the road is like having a car to ride in.
[ 369 ] The one allowed to have more than is proper wants more than is allowed.
[ 370 ] Cursing is a foolish thing: if is a friend that you curse, you do it to your harm; if an enemy, you aggravate him more.
[ 371 ] Long deliberations are the safest thing, for hasty advice usually makes for failures.
[ 372 ] You ought to have an ear that is deaf to charges.
[ 373 ] Gain with the loss of reputation is a loss, not a gain.
[ 374 ] From another person's vice, the wise person corrects his/her own.
[ 375 ] Even a single hair has its own shadow.
[ 376 ] You may find good fortune more quickly than you may keep it.
[ 377 ] An attractive appearance is a silent recommendation.
[ 378 ] Taking a favor from someone to whom you can't return it is a swindle.
[ 379 ] Whenever fortune favors the wicked, this happens to the loss and trouble of the best.
[ 380 ] Bear, don't blame, what can not be avoided.
[ 381 ] The companions of great happiness are foolishness and insolence.
[ 382 ] The one who has lost good faith can lose nothing further.
[ 383 ] Being hurt is hard, whether by a friend or by one who has power: but to complain about the one is not honorable, and about the other is not safe.
[ 384 ] The next day learns from the one before.
[ 385 ] Greedy persons are good to nobody, but they are the worst to themselves.
[ 386 ] Nothing is so sweet that it does not make one full, unless variety spices it.
[ 387 ] A mistake that leaders make turns to trouble for the people.
[ 388 ] Extravagance lacks a lot, greed everything.
[ 389 ] Either a brave or a happy person can tolerate ill-will.
[ 390 ] For a happy person ignores ill-will, a brave one despises it.
[ 391 ] Anger dissolves right away; hatred lasts a long time.
[ 392 ] It is a wise person's way not to scorn enemies, no matter how lowly: for they can do damage when the opportunity arises.
[ 393 ] The judges are condemned when they let the guilty go.
[ 394 ] Those who allow a crime condemn themselves then and there before the judge of their conscience, even though no judge renders a verdict.
[ 395 ] High rank constitutes a disgrace for those not worthy of the place.
[ 396 ] The guilty fear the law, the innocent their luck.
[ 397 ] In every matter delay's a bother, yet it makes us wise, so that we don't do anything rashly or recklessly.
[ 398 ] They live badly who always think they are going to win.
[ 399 ] They are less disappointed who quickly get refused.
[ 400 ] The one whom many fear ought to fear the many.
[ 401 ] Greedy people never lack an excuse [a reason for refusing].
[ 402 ] The person who lives in fear is convicted every day.
[ 403 ] The times are always getting worse and day by day people's morality is deteriorating more and more.
[ 404 ] It is foolish to fear what can't be avoided.
[ 405 ] Persons compelled by greed lack what they have as much as what they don't have.
[ 406 ] Misers are equally deprived of what belongs to them and what belongs to others.
[ 407 ] Maxims.
[ 408 ] A great teacher of error, the people. ["People in general are very good at illustrating what not to do."]
[ 409 ] From childhood, people all get used to having the right ideas about things, and these ideas will mature in keeping with the stages of their lives.
[ 410 ] Select the best plan for living - routine will make it a most delightful one.
[ 411 ] A person is made up of body and intellect.
[ 412 ] We have a body [made] out of earth and these elements that we perceive and touch, like the bodies of animals.
[ 413 ] [We have] a mind given by divine power, an intellect like the angels and God. On this basis one is judged a person, and only should such be rightly called a person, as the greatest men have chosen to do. For the intellect [or spirit] of each person is that individual.
[ 414 ] The best queen and leader of all endeavors is Virtue, which all the rest have to serve if they want to perform their duties. 
[ 415 ] Wealth is not precious stones or metals, not magnificent buildings, or well-made furniture: but it is not being deprived of that which is indispensable for the protection of life.
[ 416 ] The body itself is nothing but a protective shell and a serving agency for the mind, to which nature, and reason, and God bids it to be subject, as the insensate is subject to what has feeling and what dies is subject to what is undying and godly.
[ 417 ] What is life but a kind of journey, beset and beleaguered by so many calamities on all sides, over each moment of which looms an end that can occur for the silliest of reasons?
[ 418 ] The way it is on the road is the same way it is in life: the one who has less baggage and is entangled with fewer burdens makes it a lighter and more delightful journey.
[ 419 ] Riches and possessions and clothing are gotten only for their use. Vast wealth doesn't help anyone; rather it weighs everyone down, as heavy cargo does a ship.
[ 420 ] Gold is not very different from garbage, unless you make use of it, except that guarding it causes more stress, and it distracts you from whatever is especially good for a person's health while it makes you put your interest into that one thing alone.
[ 421 ] The largest part of riches, buildings, furniture that is rich and abundant, precious stones, gold, silver, and every kind of decoration - [these] are both gotten and displayed for the eyes of the ones looking at it, and not for the uses of those possessing it.
[ 422 ] What is nobility but accident of birth and belief that has been introduced by the foolishness of the people? And it is quite often gotten by means of robberies.
[ 423 ] A real, authentic nobility arises from virtue: it is silly to boast that you had a good parent, when you yourself are bad, and by your disreputable character you are a shameful stain upon the attractive wholesomeness of your house.
[ 424 ] To despise someone's lowly birth is to quietly rebuke God, the originator of [all] bearing.
[ 425 ] What is power but an alluring annoyance? No one is so ambitious that he, if he knew what worries, what concerns, and how great a sea of troubles are in it, would not flee it as he would flee a situation of serious distress.
[ 426 ] How great is the hatred if you have control over wicked people, and how much worse it is if you are wicked yourself!
[ 427 ] What difference is there in sleep or solitude between the greatest king and the lowest servant?
[ 428 ] What is beauty in the body itself? Certainly attractively-colored limbs. If the inner organs could be perceived, how much ugliness would be found to exist in even the most appealing body?
[ 429 ] What good do the handsome looks and attractive features of the body do, if the mind is base and like "an ugly guest in a beautiful lodge," as that famous Greek said?
[ 430 ] Beauty, strength, agility, and the other gifts of the body wither quickly, as little flowers disappear on account of trivial causes. Even a bout of fever sometimes shakes the most robust of men, and wipes out all the charm of his appearance.
[ 431 ] No one can rightly call "his" the external things that so easily pass to others: not bodily things either, which so quickly disappear.
[ 432 ] Why is it that the things that many admire are the causes of the worst vices, like impertinence, arrogance, sloth, aggressiveness, spite, rivalry, enmity, quarreling, wars, slaughter, massacre, calamity?
[ 433 ] From soft and self-indulgent living, a great number of diseases infiltrate the body, and quite extensive loss is sustained by one's property, then sure regret comes to one's heart, and dullness in the wit, which shrinks away by the body's fun, and breaks down.
[ 434 ] Don't think that the worst evil is poverty, or lowly birth, or prison, or bodily exposure, disgrace, bodily handicaps, diseases, or feebleness, but consider it to be the vices and what approaches them: ignorance, a numb insensitivity, and mad behavior.
[ 435 ] Consider the great good to be the opposites of these: Virtue, and what approaches it, skill, keen intelligence, mental health.
[ 436 ] If you possess external goods, they will profit you [to the extent that they are] connected with virtue; they will hinder you [to the extent that they are connected ] with vice. If you do not have them, be careful not to seek [them] even with the smallest forfeit of virtue.
[ 437 ] The greater the concern for the body, the less there is for the spirit.
[ 438 ] The more pampered the body is, the more keenly it resists the mind, even as a horse when it has been fastidiously fed tries to unseat its rider.
[ 439 ] The heavy burden of the body undoes the spirit, and the lavish feeding or the indulgence of the body blunts the sharpness of the intellect. 
[ 440 ] Food, sleep, exercises -- all the care of one's health ought to be related to being well rather than to feeling good, so that one's body may give quick service to one's mind.
[ 441 ] Nothing matches pleasure for weakening the liveliness of the mind and crushing the strength and power of the body: to be sure, all strength of mind and body thrives on work and effort: it wilts under leisure and tenderness.
[ 442 ] Cleanliness of the body and a way of life that does not go as far as luxury or fastidiousness contribute to one's health and wit.
[ 443 ] Wash your hands and face with cold water regularly, and wipe them off with a clean towel.
[ 444 ] Keep the cold away from the other parts of your body, but especially from your neck.
[ 445 ] Do not eat right after resting, or before lunch, except sparingly.
[ 446 ] Breakfast is for settling the stomach, or for giving strength back to the body. It is not for feeling full.
[ 447 ] Three or four mouthfuls of bread are enough, without drink, or certainly just a little bit and even that diluted: this is as good for the mind as for the body.
[ 448 ] In your lunch and dinner, get accustomed to taking only one kind of food, a very simple dish and as wholesome as supplies allow, however many things are brought to the table.
[ 449 ] The wide choice of foods is unhealthy for a person, and that of spices is worse.
[ 450 ] Nature has taught [us] what things are essential -- these are few and they are readily available. Foolishness has contrived the non-essentials, which are unlimited and hard to come by.
[ 451 ] If you give nature the essentials, she's happy and strengthened as if by what belongs to her: but if you give nature what is not essential, she weakens and is crushed as if by what belongs to something else.
[ 452 ] What is essential does not satisfy foolishnss: [even] when the non-essentials are overwhelming, they are not enough for it.
[ 453 ] Don't drink right after dinner, or if your thirst nags you, take something moist and a little chilled, or a very small bit of a diluted drink.
[ 454 ] Separate that drinking and your rest with at least half an hour.
[ 455 ] Physical exercise should not be overdone, but undertaken in proportion to what good health demands.
[ 456 ] Take sleep as if it were a kind of medicine, for taking care of the body, only as much as is necessary. For excessive sleep fills bodies with harfmul fluids and makes them sluggish, lazy, and slow, and it slows one's mental speed.
[ 457 ] The time given to sleep ought not to be thought to belong to life, for life is awareness.
[ 458 ] Don't dip into filthy authors, so that no bit of squalor sticks to your spirit from the contact.
[ 459 ] We fashion learning with three instruments, as it were: wit, memory, interest.
[ 460 ] Wit is sharpened by practice; memory is extended by developing it. Amusements undo both; good health strengthens them.
[ 461 ] Realize that you are losing your time and trouble if you do not pay close attention to what you read or hear.
[ 462 ] Don't be ashamed to ask about what you do not know. Don't be embarrassed [= don't blush] to be taught by anyone, because the greatest men have not been embarrassed [at that]. Rather be embarrassed about not knowing, or about not wanting to learn.
[ 463 ] If you want to appear learned, make the effort to be so. There is no shortcut. In the same way you will not find any easier way to be thought good than actually being so.
[ 464 ] Whatever you want to seem, make yourself be: otherwise you are desiring in vain.
[ 465 ] Time undoes what is false, and it validates what is true.
[ 466 ] Any person can make mistakes: nobody but a fool continues on in his error.
[ 467 ] Don't strive as much to answer at great length as to answer in an appropriate and a timely way.
[ 468 ] Invite to your lunch and dinner those who can teach you, and who can with charming and intelligent conversation both raise your spirits and make you smarter.
[ 469 ] You will learn from the wise how to be more careful.
[ 470 ] Strive to understand not only the words of the author whom you are reading, but especially his meanings.
[ 471 ] The more you entrust to your memory, the more faithfully it will keep it all; the less you entrust, the less faithfully will it do so.
[ 472 ] No limit must be put on the pursuit of wisdom in life; it should end wth life. People should always contemplate those three things as long as they live: how to discern well, how to speak well, how to act well.
[ 473 ] All arrogance should be kept out of intellectual pursuits. For the things that even the most learned of mortals understands do not amount to the slightest fraction of what that person fails to know. Whatever people know is something slender and unclear and unsure, and our minds, shackled in this bodily prison, are hemmed in by extensive ignorance and the darkest shadows: We have so blunt a vision that we don't even scratch the surface of reality.
[ 474 ] Arrogance hurts the progress of studies to a great extent. For many would have been able to arrive at wisdom if they had not already thought that they had arrived [there].
[ 475 ] Avoid competition, jealous rivalry, detraction, and the vain compulsion for glory, since we pursue these studies precisely to escape those things.
[ 476 ] Studies spice up happy matters, they soften sad ones, they restrain the rash impulses of youth, they lighten the annoying sluggishness of old age. At home, abroad, in public, in private, in solitude, in a crowd, in leisure, in work, they companion, they support, no--they take the initiative, they lend assistance, they give aid.
[ 477 ] The spirit ought not despair or withdraw in the face of a buffeting fortune: indeed, a morning against you will sometimes give way to an evening in your favor.
[ 478 ] This life is nothing but a pilgrimage by which we press on to another one that is eternal, and we are lacking very few things for the completion of this journey.
[ 479 ] Getting one's fill of fortune's favors is nothing different from a footsoldier being hampered with many burdens and overwhelmed.
[ 480 ] No one is so stupidly mindless as to get herself ready and dress herself up for the journey rather than for that city toward which she is headed and in which she has a mind to stay.
[ 481 ] By Religion, God is known; once known, he can't but be loved.
[ 482 ] This world is like a kind of home for God, or rather a temple. He himself brought it forth from nothing to its present appearance and splendor.
[ 483 ] Angels, demons, people, living beings, plants, stones, heavens and essential matter-- all these things are finally in God's hands and they obey him.
[ 484 ] We don't see anything arising or moving or happening, and not even a straw being lifted or a tuft of wool floating outside of God's direction and command.
[ 485 ] All human wisdom, if it is compared with the Christian faith, is garbage and pure folly.
[ 486 ] To know it is complete wisdom; to live by it, perfect virtue: but no one knows it who does not live devoutly.
[ 487 ] The goodness of Christ elicits our love; his majesty, religious worship; his wisdom, faith.
[ 488 ] Works done by the body are silly in God's sight, unless they are seasoned with feeling from the heart.
[ 489 ] In the most secret hiding-places, and far away from everyone's eyes, and even in your heart itself, and in your mind, know that you have God as an on-looker, a witness, a judge of everything, even of your thoughts, so that revering his presence, you not only do but even entertain the thought of nothing wicked or shameful.
[ 490 ] It is wicked to joke about holy matters or to use the sayings of the Sacred Scriptures for play, foolishness, old wives' tales, or taunting: that would be like someone sprinkling medicine gotten for one's health on garbage.
[ 491 ] Take part in liturgies attentively and devoutly, fully aware that whatever you see or hear is very pure and holy, and that it looks to that vast majesty of God, which is easy to worship and impossible to understand.
[ 492 ] When you call God Lord, make sure that you serve him: when you call him Father, make sure that you love him, and show yourself to be a son worthy of such a Father.
[ 493 ] It is awful for a musical entertainer to sing one thing while playing another; it is much more awful in prayer to God to say one thing and to think another.
[ 494 ] God provides various kinds of nourishment for all living things every day, he keeps them safe, and he rescues them from the death toward which they are heading at his command. 
[ 495 ] Nothing is given to Christ in a more real way than what is given to the needy.
[ 496 ] When you go to bed, think that each day is an image of a human life that night follows, and think that sleep is a very close representation of the state of death.
[ 497 ] The wisest teacher of our life, in fact even its originator, has given a singular example for living, that we should love. 
[ 498 ] No one has ill-will for the one whom he loves: and no one is happy about the troubles of a friend, or is hurt by his good fortunes. For Love makes everything common, and he considers his own the things that belong to the one he loves.
[ 499 ] Very long and very dark are the shadows in the human heart; what human sight will pierce through so deep a night?
[ 500 ] Respect a person commended to you by God if that person is worthy because that one is worthy of your respect: if not, respect that person because God is worthy of your obedience.
[ 501 ] [God has brought in peace, love, and concord. Divisions and factions and personal gain at others' loss, just like dissension, quarrels, fights, and wars -- these the Devil has introduced, the most expert craftsman of such as these.
[ 502 ] Concord makes even the most trivial things come together; discord makes even the most important ones come apart. [Lit: By means of concord,... etc.]
[ 503 ] Don't laugh at anyone [irriseris], thinking that what has happened to one, can happy to anyone. Rather thank God that he has spared you that accident, and pray both that no such thing happen to you and that there be some help for the one that has been so afflicted, even a mind at peace, and help him yourself, if you are able.
[ 504 ] There are no better resources than sure friendships. There are no more powerful companions than faithful friends.
[ 505 ] He takes the sun away from the world, who takes friendship from one's life.
[ 506 ] True and real and lasting friendship exists only among the good, among whom mutual love easily makes a union.
[ 507 ] Bad people are friends neither among themselves, nor with those who are good.
[ 508 ] The surest and shortest way to be loved is by love. For nothing elicits love the way love does.
[ 509 ] It is poison for a friendship if you love as if you are going to hate, and if you regard a friend in such a way that you think he can be an enemy.
[ 510 ] Don't investigate other people's lives and do not not inquisitively examine what each one is doing: many quarrels arise from this. Moreover, it is foolish to know others accurately and be ignorant about yourself.
[ 511 ] To direct insult at insult is to clean mud with mud.
[ 512 ] Flattery is an awful vice -- shameful for the one who speaks it, and destructive for the one who hears it.
[ 513 ] Adopt a kind of speech that is restrained, courteous, and gracious, not harsh, countrified or sloppy, but not too precise or artificial.
[ 514 ] Don't take too quick a pace in speaking or let your words get ahead of your thought; and don't answer before you have fully understood the meaning of any matter and what the one you are answering has said and meant.
[ 515 ] Very seldom should that famous saying be sent around, Whatever in the mouth..., and and I wonder whether it should ever be allowed since between friends there always has to be care taken that we not say anything that might tear or injure the friendship.
[ 516 ] In disagreeing, do not be argumentative or stubborn. If you hear the truth, reverence it in silence, and rise before it, as if for a sacred ceremony.
[ 517 ] But if you do not hear it, allow it anyway, either for your friend or your modesty, especially when it causes no loss to your good character or to your religious devotion.
[ 518 ] What you wish kept quiet, first keep quiet about yourself, but if you are going to reveal it, consider repeatedly to whom you are going to reveal it.
[ 519 ] Do not be deceptive or caustic.
[ 520 ] If people know that you are deceptive, no one will believe you even if you state the purest truth.
[ 521 ] On the other hand, if people know that you are honest, your word will command a greater confidence than the most sacred oath that others give.
[ 522 ] The one who has gotten himself into a situation that he can get out of only by lying is a sorry fellow.
[ 523 ] Don't wait until a close friend tells you about his urgent needs; you get wind of them and help him on your own initiative.
[ 524 ] Do not only give love to your parent but the deepest respect, immediately after God.
[ 525 ] Believe that you are dear to the one from whom you get a kind rebuke. And never think that rebuking is an obstacle even when it comes from an enemy. For if it raises valid objections, it is pointing out what we should correct; but if false, what we should avoid. Thus it always makes us better, or more careful.
[ 526 ] Be rather slow in taking others into your close confidence, and rather steadfast about keeping them once you've accepted them.
[ 527 ] With respect to the animals, the especially deadly thing among the wild ones is jealousy; among the tame ones, flattery.
[ 528 ] If you can't take criticism well, don't do things that deserve it.
[ 529 ] Our nature inclines down towards evil; but towards virtue the slope rises up and the path is difficult.
[ 530 ] To those younger than you, be kind; to your elders, respectful; to your peers, approachable and easy to deal with.
[ 531 ] If you are not outstanding in virtue, why do you insist on seeming better than others? If you are outstanding, why don't you surpass the common people more in the control of your disposition?
[ 532 ] The Lord's eye is watching over each thing; he knows both the one doing harm and the one suffering it.
[ 533 ] Put more value on the judgment of your conscience than on all the voices of the vast crowd of people, which is inexperienced and foolish: as it is afraid to try what is unknown, so also it condemns it.
[ 534 ] Reputation neither helps someone who is wicked nor hurts someone who is good.
[ 535 ] When you are dead, what more will reputation mean to you than a picture praised by Apelles or a champion horse at Olympia? It doesn't even profit you while you are alive, if you are unaware of it. If a person knows it, it contributes nothing except that a wise person will have scorn for it and a foolish person will have greater self-satisfaction.
[ 536 ] Conscience is a great teacher about this life.
[ 537 ] There are those who reject concern for the divine power to sin more boldly and freely; they are doubly wicked, because they respect neither people nor God.
[ 538 ] That conscience that no fear restrains goes far astray.
[ 539 ] Who but a madman would shirk efforts made in return for an eternal heavenly reward? After all, you can't even get these perishable and shoddy things without work.
[ 540 ] Sin is the death of a person, so whoever sins appears to be murdering himself. For our life detaches itself from God and from the peace of one's conscience, than which nothing is more blessed.
[ 541 ] Just as a single day of human life is preferable to the longest lifetime of a raven or a stag, so one day lived on the basis of religion -- that is , one day of divine life -- ranks above to all eternity without religion.
[ 542 ] Witticisms and striking utterances.
[ 543 ] When Publius had noticed that Mutius, an especially grumpy person, was gloomier than usual, he said, "Either something bad has happened to Mutius -- or something good."
[ 544 ] When a certain person received Augustus Caesar with a meager enough dinner, one even approaching a regular everyday meal (for the emperor refused almost no one who invited him), after the skimpy banquet, while he was leaving without any fanfare, he merely muttered to the host who was telling him good-bye, "I didn't think we were so close."
[ 545 ] To someone asking him at what time one ought to take the mid-day meal, he said, "For a somebody rich, whenever he wants, and for somebody poor, whenever he can."
[ 546 ] Diogenes, when asked what wine he liked best, said, "Somebody else's."
[ 547 ] Someone asked where gold got its light color from. Diogenes answered, "Because it never has a moment when it has no muggers."
[ 548 ] Diogenes on his way to Myndum, when he noticed that the front gates were huge but the city small, said, "Mynidians, shut your gates so your city doesn't leave you someday." 
[ 549 ] Diogenes was taking his lunch in the marketplace and he was called a dog by some who stood at a distance. "You are the dogs," he said, "since you are standing around watching me eat."
[ 550 ] When the son of a certain prostitute threw a stone into an assembly, he told him, "Be careful that you don't hit your father!"
[ 551 ] When Dionysius of Syracuse took the golden clothing from [the statue of] the Olympian Jupiter and dressed him in a woolen one, he was asked why he did that. He said, "Because in summertime, a golden outfit is heavy and in winter it is cold, but woolen wear goes much better in either season."
[ 552 ] This very Dionysius, when he had ordered the golden beard taken off of [the statue of] Aesculapius, claimed, " It isn't right that his father Apollo be smooth-cheeked while the one that was his son is seen bearded."
[ 553 ] Some thief was mocking the Demosthenes's research and writings a little too impudently. So he told the man, "I realize that I'm bothering you by burning a lamp at night."
[ 554 ] When Lacon had married a very small woman, he wittily said, "You have to pick the lesser evil."
[ 555 ] When a certain young man, reduced to poverty by too much expensive living, was eating olives for dinner, Diogenes, chancing to pass by, said, "If you had had lunches like this, you would not have dinners like this."
[ 556 ] When a certain inexperienced doctor asked Pausanias, "How is it, sir, that you have no health problems?", he said, "Because I don't have you for a doctor."
[ 557 ] Galba, asked by somebody for a raincoat to use, wittily answered, "It is not raining, so you don't need it. If it rains, I'll use it myself."
[ 558 ] When Aristotle at the age of about 62 was working so hard that it seemed that his life was almost over, his followers came to him, asking to pick one of them to take his place. Among his students there were two outstanding ones, Theophrastus of Lesbos and Menedemus of Rhodes. Aristotle answered that he would do what they asked when the occasion arose. A little later, when they had gathered around him for the same purpose, he said that he found the wine that he was drinking not very agreeable, and he asked that someone get him a foreign wine, either one from Rhodes or from Lesbos. As soon as that was managed, tasting the wine from Rhodes, he said, "That's a downright robust and pleasant wine." Next tasting the wine from Lesbos, he said: "Both are outstandingly good, but I like the one from Lesbos better." When he said this, there was no doubt that with his statement he had chosen his successor, not wine, both politely and cleverly. He approved both and he did not remove from his students their prerogative to choose. [But the Greek language is a little bit more urbane, because oinos, that is, vinum, is a word of the masculine gender, so that this statement, ho lesbios hediôn might be used of a person.]
[ 559 ] A certain person in Hadrian the Sophist's circle had sent him fish on a silver platter with a gold design on it. But taking delight in the dishware, he did not send it back, but merely answered the one who had sent it, "It was a nice touch to add the fish," as if the platter had been sent as a gift and the fish merely added for effect. Some say this was done as a joke, to punish his disciple's fault, since he was said to be rather stingy.
[ 560 ] Pollio would say that doing something just right leads to doing it often, but doing it often leads to doing it less well: for constant performance produces facility more than faculty, and not confidence but rashness results. What we want done with care should be done seldom.
[ 561 ] Once at dinner with Dionysius, Philoxenus saw that the king had been served a remarkably large red mullet but he had been served a very tiny one, the mature fish of this species being the ones that people praise. So he moved his little fish to his ears. To Dionysius wondering at this and asking him the reason for it, he said, "I've got my clutches on Galatea, and I wanted to ask it certain things about her. But he says he is not old enough to know anything yet, but he says his grandfather is over there on your plate, and he could tell a lot if someone let him speak." The king was amused and sent him his own mullet.
[ 562 ] When the cuckoo-bird asked the smaller birds why they fled her, they said, "Because we suppose you'll turn out to be a hawk." (The cuckoo is quite close to the hawk in appearance.) [Beware of those who put out tyrannical signals in their behavior.] From Plutarch.
[ 563 ] When Antisthenes was carrying some salted fish through the market-place himself, some people were surprised that the philosopher was performing such a lowly task, and that in public, rather than assigning it to a slave. He said to them, "What are you surprised at? I'm carrying this for myself, not for somebody else." He saw that what someone does for himself is not base servility, so carrying salted fish was not improper for one who was going to enjoy them.
[ 564 ] Stilpo, seeing Crates turning red from the cold in the winter months, said, "You seem to me to need a new cloak." The wit that it is in the double meaning can not be translated into Latin: kaine as one word means new, an kai ne as two means and mind. The ears can hardly tell the difference, but the written form makes it plain. He said, "You seem to be needing a new cloak, or a [new] cloak and a [new] mind." The chill called for a new [cloak]; the foolishness of the Cynic, who would not adapt his clothing to the season, for a new mind.
[ 565 ] When someone asked him whether he had stopped beating his father, Menedemus of Eretria made this response: I have not beaten him and I have not stopped. When another person had postulated that he had to solve the ambiguity with a yes or a no, with either an affirmation or with a denial, he said, "It is ridiculous to follow your rules when you can run into them at the gates." The second one was trying to catch him with a treacherous line of questioning, for whether he would have answered "I have stopped" or "I have not stopped, he would have been admitting to the charge." Seeing this coming, he put a stop to the sophistic word-games.
[ 566 ] Bion when asked whether he should marry a wife, said, "If you marry an ugly one, you'll have bear her, but if you marry a beautiful one, you'll have to share her." In the Greek words, there's a bit more play: peinio and koinio. There's just as much in Latin too if we'd say suspectam [admired] and for the former despectam [looked down upon].
[ 567 ] [Epictetus was accustomed to sum up all philosophy in two words: aneche kai apoche, "Sustain and Forbear." The first of these directs us to endure with a calm spirit the troubles that come our way; the second, to refrain from pleasures. So it will come about that we are not dejected when things go against us, and we are not spoiled when they turn out in our favor.
[ 568 ] Heraclitus of Ephesus used to say that citizens should fight for their laws no less than for their walls. That is to say, a city would not in any way be able to be safe apart from its laws, and apart from its walls it could.]
[ 569 ] Galba had an unsightly hump on his back, about which people joked, "It is just like Galba to live in a bad residence!" When he would promote a cause in Caesar's presence, he would regularly say, "Straighten me out, Caesar, if you find anything to blame in me." The other answered, "I can counsel you, Galba, but I can not straighten you out."
[ 570 ] When a very great number of those indicted by Severus Cassius were released [absolverentur] and the engineer Caesar had contracted for construction work on the forum kept leading him on for a long time with delays, he said "I wish Cassius had also indicted my forum!" [Absolvere also means "to finish."]
[ 571 ] They say that Alexander the Great, standing by Diogenes, had asked him whether he was afraid of him. But he said: "What are you, good or evil?" Alexander replied, "Good." He answered, "Who is afraid of what is good?" [He demonstrated that a king ought not be feared unless he confesses that he is evil.]
[ 572 ] Once Diogenes, alone in his barrel, feeding on dry and moldy bread, heard the whole city buzzing with all kinds of happy sounds since it was a holiday. He felt somewhat dejected, and for a long time thought about abandoning his way of life. But when he finally saw mice creeping up and eating the breadcrumbs, he said, "Why are you unhappy with yourself. Diogenes, you are rich enough -- look you are even providing meals for guests."
[ 573 ] A certain man carrying around a long club in public had struck Diogenes by accident and blurted out instinctively "Watch out!" But Diogenes said, "Now you are not going to hit me again, are you?"
[ 574 ] When Diogenes, reading on a certain occasion for an extremely long time, had gotten to the point where he saw blank space, he said, "Courage, men, I see land." 
[ 575 ] When Thraysullus the Cynic asked for a drachma, Alexander answered, "It is not the type of gift that a king gives." When the Cynic added, "So give me a talent," he said, "But it is not Cynic-like to take such a gift." [On both sides, he rebuffed the shamelessness of the one making the request, whom he did not consider worthy of any gift.]
[ 576 ] Faustus, Sulla's son, very cleverly teased his sister, who was seeing two married men at the same time, Fulvius, the son of Fullo, and Pompey, nicknamed Macula. He said, "I am surprised that my sister has a macula [spot] when she has a fullo [launderer].
[ 577 ] [When his son Titus was taking him to task over having devised a tax even on the latrines, Vespasian waved money from the first payment under his nose, asking him whether he found the smell offensive. When he said he didn't, Vespasian replied, "And yet it comes from urine." Hence the saying, "The smell of profit is good no matter what the source."
[ 578 ] The poet Virgil was noticed to be constantly letting out sighs. This is the source of that well-known answer of Augustus, when he was sitting between him and Flaccus Horatius, who was troubled with bleary-eyes. Asked by one of his friends about what he was doing, he said, "I am sitting between sighs and tears."
[ 579 ] Once a certain traveler making a journey abroad had turned aside into an inn, where an entirely vegetarian meal was set before him, with very watered-down wine, and a minimum of service. But after he had had his dinner, he asked that the doctor be called to get his fee. The inn-keeper answered, "What kind of trouble do you need a doctor for in this place that is so far out of the way? The he said, "Sir, don't you know who you are? To make the fee fit your service, take what a doctor costs rather than an inn-keeper, since you fed me like a sick man at this poor little dinner."
[ 580 ] Pyrrhiniculus the Basque had pulled off the road to an inn and at supper was turning a young duck on his plate, nicely dressed and seasoned. Suddenly a Spanish traveler appeared at his side, with his eyes glued to the duck. "You, friend, can receive one coming kindly as a friend." Then Pyrrhiniculus asked him what his name was. Full of self-assertion and self-importance, he said "Alopantius Ausimarchides Hiberoneus Alarchides." Then Pyrrhiniculus said, "Wow! Are there four birds here for these heroes, and Spanish ones at that? No offense intended. It is enough for Pyrrhiniculus alone: Small servings fit small people." From Pontanus.
[ 581 ] When Diogenes wanted to mock a man who was very bad at archery, he positioned himself near the target. Asked why he did this, he said "So he doesn't hit me." 
[ 582 ] A sharp and thoroughly sophisticated Florentine youth, brought in before a priest-Cardinal for amusing conversation, had spoken at length quite cleverly and also even brilliantly. The priest, turning to a friend who was standing nearby, whispered that when boys like this grow up their wits usually get rather dull. "Really, good Cardinal, you must have been quite a brilliant little boy." 
[ 583 ] A particular man who was growing grey asked Emperor Hadrian for something and was refused. When he asked for the same thing a little later, but now with a head of black hair (for he had dyed it), the Emperor, recognizing his face, said, "That very thing I refused your father."
[ 584 ] When Minutius was trapped by and enemy ambush and was in extreme danger, Fabius, mobilizing his army from a mountain came to his aid so that he would not perish with his troops, and slaughtering many of the enemy, he pulled him out of the danger. When this had happened, Hannibal said to his own army: "Didn't I predict to you a good number of times that that mountain-cloud would someday send a storm down on us?"
[ 585 ] When Augustus's daughter Julia greeted him, she had realized that he had been offended by the sight of her overly provocative outfit, although he tried to pretend he was not. And so one the next day she wore a different kind of outfit when she greeted her father with an embrace. Then the emperor who had contained his distress the day before could not contain his joy, and he said, "How much more becoming is that outfit for Augustus's daughter." She replied, "Yes, for sure--today I have dressed myself for my father's eyes; yesterday for a husband's."
[ 586 ] At the gladiatorial exhibition, Livia and Julia had attracted people's attention with the difference in their company. Mature and serious men encircled Livia, but exuberant young ones accompanied Julia. Julia's father mentioned to her through a note that he saw how big a difference there was between the two leading ladies. She wrote back: And these are going to grow old with me.
[ 587 ] While Augustus was still in his youth, he cleverly scored against Vatinius. Since he was given to the pains of the gout, he was eager to seem to have shaken the affliction, and he would boast that he now walked a mile. "I'm not surprised," said the Emperor. "The days are a bit longer."
[ 588 ] Removed from his command of the cavalry, a certain person dared to request additional pay from Augustus, with the excuse that he was not seeking the pay for financial gain, but, he said, "So that I might seem to have gotten the gift by your decision and this way it will not be thought that I had been removed but that I had resigned." Augustus said, "You go tell everybody that you took it, and I won't deny it."
[ 589 ] At the beginning of his rule, Emperor Domitian was in the habit of taking private time for himself and doing nothing in the meantime other than catching flies and pinning them through with a sharply pointed stylus. So when someone asked if anyone was inside with the Emperor, Vibius Crispus quipped, "Not even a fly."
[ 590 ] Three men had been appointed to set out for Bithynia as legates. One of them was detained by the gout, another had a head riddled with wounds, and the third seemed to be struggling with mental instability. Cato laughed and said, "The delegation representing the Roman people has neither feet nor head nor heart."
[ 591 ] When the steward had prepared a modest meal for Lucullus, he summoned him and berated him. The fellow said "I did not think that there was a need for a lavish spread because you were going to be dining alone." Lucullus said, "What are you saying? Didn't you know that today Lucullus was going to dinner at Lucullus's?"
[ 592 ] When this same man had entertained some Greeks splendidly for several days, and they said that they were amazed that he would incur such expenses for their sake, he said, "Some was for you, my good guests, but the biggest part was for Lucullus's sake."
[ 593 ] When Scipio Nasica had come to Ennius the poet's house and asked for him at at door-way, the maid-servant had told him that he was not at home, but Nasica realized that she was saying this at her master's request and that he was inside. But pretending not to notice this, he left. But a few days later, When Ennius had come to Nasica and asked for him at the door, Nasica himself shouted out that he was not at home. Then Ennius said, "What!? Don't I recognize your voice?" Nasica replied, "You really are a shameless man! When I was looking for you, I believed your maid-servant, and you don't even believe me!"
[ 594 ] Suetonius tells a story about the Emperor [lit: father] Vespasian, when he had incited a comic who was hurling many barbs at others to say something against himself as well. He said, "I will -- when you finish doing your business," making reference to the Caesar's appearance, since he had a face like a man who was making an effort.
[ 595 ] They tell a story about Bede, referred to as "the Venerable,": When he was on his way to Rome, they showed him the letters S.P.Q.R. engraved on a stone (meaning "The Senate and the People of Rome"), and they asked him as they would a host what those letters meant. Pretending he didn't know the true meaning, he said, "A Foolish People is looking for Rome."
[ 596 ] Asked why he put women who were wicked into his tragedies, when Sophocles put in ones that were good, the poet Philoxenus made this very clever response: "He presents them as they ought to be; I present them as they are."
[ 597 ] [[When the same man was having a meal at his friend Sytho's, olives had been served and a little later fish brought in on a shallow pan. When it hit the small container of olives, he recited half of a Homeric line: musixen d'elaan, that is, "He whipped them so they would pull." (It is said of a charioteer.) But Philoxenus saw that the olives had to be taken away right away, and meanwhile he played on the Greek word elaion, which means of olives and elaan, which means to draw a chariot, or something like it.
[ 598 ] The same man was invited to a party. When black bread had been served, he said, "Be careful not to serve too much or you'll make the room dark."
[ 599 ] At a party, Phryne, in the bloom of her youth, when she was playing the party-game that had everyone do what one would do, first dipped her hand twice in water and moved it to her forehead. But since everyone had make-up on, the water flowed down and smeared the make-up, disfiguring everyone's face with a wrinkled look, while she herself, with her natural beauty at its best, looked even better with her face washed.
[ 600 ] Once Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was hosting a matron from Campana who displayed to her her jewels, which were the most beautiful ones available in that whole era. Cornelia drew out the conversation until her children got back from class. Then she said "And these are my jewels," thinking that nothing was more beautiful to a matron, or more precious, than children who had been brought up correctly.
[ 601 ] When everyone was begging for an end to the Tyrant Dionysius, one old woman was in the habit of imploring the gods early every day that he remain safe and sound. Summoned by the king, the woman was asked where she got so kind attitude toward the king. She said, "When I was a girl and we had a bad tyrant, I hoped for his death. When he had been killed, a worse one took control of the citadel. And I hope for his destruction. Now that we have you, even worse than the earlier ones, I am afraid that if you pass away someone even worse will follow you."
[ 602 ] Demonax the Cynic was once asked what he thought about the disagreement of two people, one of whom put forth a silly proposition and the other of whom gave a non-sensical response. He said, "It seems to me that one is milking a male goat and the other is holding a sieve ready."
[ 603 ] Once Socrates put up with Xanthippe's quarrelling for a long while, and finally worn out, he sat down in front of the door, but even more exasperated by the peacefulness and mildness of the man, she poured the contents of the chamber-pot on him from the window. The people passing by laughed, and he smiled too, saying to them: "I just knew that after such a thundering, rain would follow."
[ 604 ] When Alcibiades was amazed at how Socrates suffered Xanthippe who was so excessively quarrelsome at home, he answered, "Don't you, Alcibiades, put up with the noise of your clucking chickens at your house?" He said, "I do, but my chickens produce eggs and chicks for me." "And my Xanthippe bears me children," said Socrates.
[ 605 ] When Curtius, a Roman knight dissipating himself in his enjoyments, was dining at Caesar's, he picked up a skimpy thrush from the serving-pan and holding it, asked Caesar if he could send it. When he had replied, "Why not?", he immediately threw [misit] the bird through the window, getting a joke out of the double-meaning of the word. For is is a custom among the Romans to send food from a party to friends as a gift.
[ 606 ] When Augustus was greeted by a parrot, he had it bought. Admiring a magpie, he bought it as well. This pattern incited a certain little scrawny fellow all out of luck to train a raven to make this kind of greeting. And since its cost left him broke, he was accustomed to regularly say to the bird when it did not answer him, "My work and money are lost!" Finally he succeeded by persevering to make the raven sound out the greeting that he wanted it to. And when it had greeted Augustus when he was passing by, the Emperor said, "I have enough of such greetings at home." Then the raven also remembered those words that he had heard so often and added, "My work and money are lost!" Smiling at this, Augustus had this bird bought at a higher price than he had ever paid before.
[ 607 ] There had come to Rome from the provinces a certain youth who had such uncanny resemblance to Augustus that he attracted everyone's attention. Hearing about this, the Emperor had him brought in and, looking him over, questioned him this way: "Tell me, young man, was your mother ever at Rome?" He said no, and getting the idea for a joke he shot back, "But my father often was."
[ 608 ] When a certain Roman knight had died, it was discovered that he had been in such great debt that he could not in any way pay it off. While he was alive, he had hidden this fact. So when his property was put up for auction to pay some of his creditors, Augustus had his mattress bought for himself. To those who were suprised by this instruction, he said, "To get some sleep for myself, I have to have that mattress on which he could take his rest even while under the burden of such debt." For Augustus often spent most of the night awake on account of his tremendous concerns.