“The sage and the contemner of wealth most resemble God.”
Quintus Sextius Roman philosopher
Sentences of Sextus
tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Pl.+230 <br class="br">Plutus, line 230 <br class="br">Plutus (388 BC)
“The sage and the contemner of wealth most resemble God.”
Quintus Sextius Roman philosopher
Sentences of Sextus
“In my judgment excellence and wealth are direct opposites.”
Apollonius of Tyana (15–100) Ancient Greek philosopher
Epp. Apoll. 35
Letters
“Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”
Book I, 1258b.4
Politics
Context: Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Id quod est praestantissimum, maximeque optabile omnibus sanis et bonis et beatis, cum dignitate otium.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Pro Publio Sestio; Chapter XLV
“Even to a wicked man a divinity gives wealth, Cyrus, but to few men comes the gift of excellence.”
Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC
Source: Elegies, Line 149-150
John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician
The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms (1889)
Context: From the Radical table completed in this way, you will find with great exactness the logarithms of all sines between radius and the sine 45 degrees; from the arc of 45 degrees doubled, you will find the logarithm of half radius; having obtained all these, you will find the other logarithms. Arrange all these results as described, and you will produce a Table, certainly the most excellent of all Mathematical tables, and prepared for the most important uses.
“One that desires to excel should endeavour in those things that are in themselves most excellent.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
“To hate excellence is to hate the gods.”
Mary Renault book The Persian Boy
Source: The Persian Boy (1972), p. 400
“An excellent angler, and now with God.”
Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler
Part I, ch. 4.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
