Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana, sometimes also called Apollonios of Tyana, was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. Being a 1st-century orator and philosopher around the time of Jesus, he was compared with Jesus of Nazareth by Christians in the 4th century and by other writers in modern times...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
alloy base consider gathered men nearest nor sand tears wealth
Do not consider that to be wealth which is hoarded away, for how is it better than sand gathered from the nearest heap? Nor that which comes in from men who groan at their taxes: for the gold that is wrung from tears is of base alloy and black.
helping incapable love presumably single singular unless
Every argument is incapable of helping unless it is singular and addressed to a single person. Therefore, one who discourses in any other way presumably does so from love of reputation.
cares cause festivals increase lighten since
Festivals cause diseases, since they lighten cares but increase gluttony.
diseased godlike higher tend
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.
begin good time
Don't keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them.
deserve learning nature thanks virtue
Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.
complete crossed neither nor
When I review Xerxes' achievements, I praise him, not for having yoked the Hellespont, but for having crossed it. But I can see that Nero will neither sail through the Isthmus nor complete his digging.
account fear hail left man shall superior
If any man has left us for fear of Nero, I shall not account him a coward; but I shall hail as a philosopher any man who has been superior to this fear, and I shall teach him all I know.
both imperial understood
Nero may have understood how to tune his cithern, but he disgraced his imperial office both by slackening and by tightening the strings.
contains equivalent stones subject theaters unless useless wisdom
Multicolored stones and paintings, walkways, and theaters are useless in a city unless it also contains wisdom and law. Such things are the subject of wisdom and law, not equivalent to them.
friendship future neither nor towards
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.
believe despot itself man popular prone scandal
Never may a man prone to believe scandal be a despot or a popular leader! Under his guidance, democracy itself will be despotism.
deliver persuaded truth whose
It is the duty of the law-giver to deliver to the many the instructions of whose truth he has persuaded himself.
prayer men giving
The only prayer which a well-meaning man can pray is, O ye gods, give me whatever is fitting unto me!