“Hence partisanship arose and this was the beginning of great calamities. For public affairs began to be conducted more in accordance with greed and rivalry than with goodness and honor, and in private life hatred and enmity increased daily. Thus the disease took hold of private and public life at the same time.”

—Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, I.81, published ca. 1416

Even more words for our time?

“For a coward, and a weakling, made dissolute by wealth and soft living, is not, I swear, worth a dog or even an ass.”

— Plutarch, Moralia – How to Study Poetry

Words for our times?

“For timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech…For, again, nobody was ever sorry because he kept silent, but hundreds because they talked. Again, the word unspoken can easily be uttered later; but the spoken word cannot possibly be recalled.”

— Plutarch, Moralia – On the Education of Children

You should also think about this the next time you’re posting to Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere…

“…the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time…”

— Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

Just one of the advantages of solo travel, from one of the greats.

“Nothing shall I ever do for the sake of opinion, everything for the sake of my conscience.”

— Seneca, Liber VII Ad Gallionem De Vita Beata

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

“Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long.”

— Seneca, Liber X: Ad Paulinum De Brevitate Vitae