It is easy at any moment to surrender a large fortune; to build one up is a difficult and an arduous task.
LivyRead
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History provides valuable lessons and insights into human behavior, helping to heal and inform us.
Livy emphasizes the importance of studying history as a means of understanding human experience and behavior. He argues that history serves as a mirror reflecting the complexity of human nature and societal patterns, offering us both examples to emulate and warnings to heed. By immersing ourselves in historical study, we can gain wisdom for our own lives and societies, using the lessons learned from the past to navigate our present and future.
Themes
HistoryWisdomLearningExperienceReflection
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the importance of education, I would say, 'As Livy noted, the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind.'
More from Livy
All quotes →Valor is the soldier's adornment.
LivyRead
The army from Asia introduced a foreign luxury to Rome; it was then the meals began to require more dishes and more expenditure . . . the cook, who had up to that time been employed as a slave of low price, become dear: what had been nothing but a metier was elevated to an art.
LivyRead
Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies' resources, and minimized their own.
LivyRead
The troubles which have come upon us always seem more serious than those which are only threatening.
LivyRead
No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.
LivyRead
Similar quotes
Even today, when an Aboriginal mother notices the first stirrings of speech in her child, she lets it handle the "things" of that particular country: leaves, fruit, insects and so forth. "We give our children guns and computer games," Wendy said. "They gave their children the land."
Bruce ChatwinRead
I had a teacher when I was in college, and he was the first person who liked my photos and said, 'The way you look at girls is your own way of seeing.' He was the first person who really gave me the confidence to try something.
Sofia CoppolaRead
Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.
Ibn KhaldunRead
Because you don't learn anything unless you can find the patience to read. TV takes that away from you. It robs you from your mind.
Markus ZusakRead
If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.
Mortimer AdlerRead
This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.
Walter MurchRead