Lives of Eminent Philosophers (1.1.36-1.1.40)

To the question which is older, day or night, he replied: Night is the older by one day. Some one asked him whether a man could hide an evil deed from the gods: No, he replied, nor yet an evil thought. To the adulterer who inquired if he should deny the charge upon oath he replied that perjury was no worse than adultery. Being asked what is difficult, he replied, To know oneself. What is easy? To give advice to another. What is most pleasant? Success. What is the divine? That which has neither beginning nor end. To the question what was the strangest

thing he had ever seen, his answer was, An aged tyrant. How can one best bear adversity? If he should see his enemies in worse plight. How shall we lead the best and most righteous life? By refraining from doing what we blame in others.

What man is happy?He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind and a docile nature. He tells us to remember friends, whether present or absent; not to pride ourselves upon outward appearance, but to study to be beautiful in character. Shun ill-gotten gains, he says. Let not idle words prejudice thee against those who have shared thy confidence. Whatever provision thou hast made for thy parents, the same must thou expect from thy children. He explained the overflow of the Nile as due to the etesian winds which, blowing in the contrary direction, drove the waters upstream.

Apollodorus in his Chronology places his birth in the first year of the 35th Olympiad [640 B.C.].

Thales the Sage died as he was watching an athletic contest from heat, thirst, and the weakness incident to advanced age. And the inscription on his tomb is[*]:

Here in a narrow tomb great Thales lies;

Yet his renown for wisdom reached the skies.

I may also cite one of my own, from my first book, Epigrams in Various Metres[*]:

As Thales watched the games one festal day

The fierce sun smote him, and he passed away;

Zeus, thou didst well to raise him; his dim eyes

Could not from earth behold the starry skies.[*]

To him belongs the proverb Know thyself, which Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers attributes to Phemonoë, though admitting that it was appropriated by Chilon.

This seems the proper place for a general notice of the Seven Sages, of whom we have such accounts as the following. Damon of Cyrene in his History of the Philosophers carps at all sages, but especially the Seven. Anaximenes remarks that they all applied themselves to poetry; Dicaearchus that they were neither sages nor philosophers, but merely

shrewd men with a turn for legislation.[*] Archetimus of Syracuse describes their meeting at the court of Cypselus, on which occasion he himself happened to be present; for which Ephorus substitutes a meeting without Thales at the court of Croesus. Some make them meet at the Pan-Ionian festival, at Corinth, and at Delphi.