I delight to lodge in such temples as are not regularly kept closed. None of the gods reject me; they make me partner of their roof.
Apollonius Of TyanaRead
If you have problems of conduct that are difficult and hard to settle, I will furnish you with solutions, for I not only know matters of practice and duty, but I even know them beforehand.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of seeking guidance for complex issues and suggests a deep understanding of duties and ethics.
Apollonius of Tyana highlights the value of wisdom and foresight when dealing with difficult situations. He asserts that his knowledge of practical matters and moral obligations allows him to provide solutions to complicated conduct problems, indicating that true understanding goes beyond mere experience and includes the ability to anticipate challenges before they arise.
In practice
This quote could be used in a seminar focused on ethical leadership.
I delight to lodge in such temples as are not regularly kept closed. None of the gods reject me; they make me partner of their roof.
Just as an individual of pre-eminent worth transforms democracy into a monarchy of the best man, even so the rule of one man, if in all things it has an eye to the common welfare, is democracy.
A man must fortify himself and understand that a wise man who yields to laziness or anger or passion or love of drink, or who commits any other action prompted by impulse and inopportune, will probably find his fault condoned; but if he stoops to greed, he will not be pardoned, but render himself odious as a combination of all vices at once.
Never may a man prone to believe scandal be a despot or a popular leader! Under his guidance, democracy itself will be despotism.
If any man has left us for fear of Nero, I shall not account him a coward; but I shall hail as a philosopher any man who has been superior to this fear, and I shall teach him all I know.
O ye gods, grant unto me to have little and to want nothing.
I expect you have seen someone put a a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny steak of flame creeping along the edged of the newspaper. It was like that now.
All who ask receive, those who seek find, and to those who knock it shall be opened. Therefore, let us knock at the beautiful garden of Scripture. It is fragrant, sweet, and blooming with various sounds of spiritual and divinely inspired birds. They sing all around our ears, capture our hearts, comfort the mourners, pacify the angry, and fill us with everlasting joy.
Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.
It is not inspiration; it is expiration.
Young people have a right to optimism, and rightly so; human beings have grown and developed and accomplished wonderful feats in the world. But what mires me in pessimism is the fact that so much of life is pain and sorrow and willful ignorance and violence, and pushing back against that tide takes so much effort, so much steady fight. It's tiring.
Where's your will to be weird?
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