Plutarch's Lives, Volume I

by Plutarch

Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for fear of losing them.

For Solon held that a man's reason was perverted by deceit as much as by violence, and by pleasure no less than by pain.

The ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning.

he said that they had become immortal, even as the gods: for we do not see the gods, but we conceive them to be immortal by the respect which we pay them, and the blessings which we receive from them; and the same is the case with those who die for their country.