Apollonius of Tyana Quotes (14 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Apollonius of Tyana: 14 quotes11 likes

Famous Apollonius of Tyana Quotes

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

Apollonius of Tyana

Epp. Apoll. 35
Letters

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

Apollonius of Tyana

Epp. Apoll. 28
Letters

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

Apollonius of Tyana

to Euphrates, Epp. Apoll. 83
Letters

“I saw the Indian Brahmans living on the earth and not on it, walled without walls, and with no possessions except the whole world.”

Apollonius of Tyana

Quoted from Ram Swarup (2000). On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections, Chapter India and Greece
Different translation: In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing. quoted in The Transition to a Global Society (1991) by Kishor Gandhi, p. 17, and in The Age of Elephants (2006) by Peter Moss, p. v

“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.”

Apollonius of Tyana

Epp. Apoll. 24
Letters

“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.”

Apollonius of Tyana

Epp. Apoll. 42
Letters

Apollonius of Tyana Quotes about the soul

“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.”

Apollonius of Tyana

to Crito, Epp. Apoll. 23
Letters

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

Apollonius of Tyana

to Euphrates, Epp. Apoll. 82
Letters

“[Some] disobey the earth and sharpen knives against the animals to gain clothing and food. The Indian Brahmans disapproved of this personally and taught the Naked Philosophers of Egypt to disapprove of it too. From there Pythagoras, who was the first Greek to associate with Egyptians, borrowed the principle. He let the earth keep living creatures, but held that what the earth grows is pure, and so lived off that because it was sufficient to feed body and soul. Clothing made from dead creatures, which most people wear, he considered impure; he dressed in linen and, for the same reason, made his shoes of plaited bark. He derived many advantages from this purity, above all that of perceiving his own soul.”

Apollonius of Tyana

Attributed to Apollonius in Philostratus, Life of Apollonius. Quoted from Ram Swarup (2000). On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections, Chapter India and Greece