Apollonius of Tyana

“Plato said that virtue has no master [Republic 617e]. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself.”

“The natural philosopher Heraclitus said that man is naturally irrational. If this is true, as it is true, then everyone who enjoys futile glory should hide his face.”

“You must shun barbarians and not govern them since, barbarians as they are, it is not right that they should receive a benefit.”

“Pythagoras said that medicine is the most godlike of arts. But if the most godlike, it should tend to the soul as well as the body, or else a living thing must be unhealthy, being diseased in its higher part.”

“You request my presence at the Olympic Games, and for that reason you have sent envoys. For myself, I would come for the spectacle of physical struggle, except that I would be abandoning the greater struggle for virtue.”

“Make yourself known as a philosopher, that is a free man.”

“In my judgment excellence and wealth are direct opposites.”

“If someone gives money to Apollonius, and the giver is someone considered respectable, he will take the money if he needs it. But he will not accept a fee for philosophy even if he does need it.”

“Greet your son Aristocleides from me. I pray he may not turn out like you, since you, too, were once an irreproachable young man.”

“The soul that does not consider the question of the body’s self-sufficiency cannot make itself self-sufficient.”

“To speak falsely is the mark of a slave, but the truth is noble.”

“A man must fortify himself and understand that a wise man who yields to laziness or anger or passion or love of drink, or who commits any other action prompted by impulse and inopportune, will probably find his fault condoned; but if he stoops to greed, he will not be pardoned, but render himself odious as a combination of all vices at once.”

“I feel friendship towards philosophers, but towards sophists, teachers of literature, or any other such kind of godforsaken people, I neither feel friendship now, nor may I ever do so in the future.”