Book: Pericles. Page 1

We're talking about hay, and you're talking about straw.

Our happiness is not in the future, but in the past. In the past, we find all knowledge, all tested paths, all characters, feelings, ideas, we choose for ourselves, like a product in a shop, the most suitable one, and this choice is our fate, happiness or unhappiness.

I stood in front of your Zeus for several hours, Phidias. I saw an emerald shimmer in the depths of his eyes - this is a way of thinking, I saw blue reflections on his lips - so the words of heavenly purity shine from his lips. I saw sparks of gold and green on his eyebrows and in his beard - as if they had our sweet earthly dew on them at sunrise. On his hands are red streaks of pure gold: living blood flows there. His cheeks are white, and this whiteness is from extreme concern for the fate of the human world. He does not sit, leaning back on the back of the throne, like arrogant tyrants or tired kings sit - he leaned forward slightly, he listens to those standing in front of him, he is full of sympathy. Behind him is blackness for uncreated stars. However, one star in the distance has already been born, it flickers faintly - this is the hope that your Zeus gives to everyone who stands before him with silent prayer.

- Phidias will help us solve the problem: the one who sculpted Olympian Zeus with his own hands knows what divine perfection is and, of course, what human perfection is.
- Should I talk about the perfection of a woman, about beauty or about the perfection of a man, a warrior? Phidias responded, putting an undring bowl of wine on the table. - Should I talk about the perfection of the rose or the perfection of the thorns that protect this rose?

If you listen to Protagoras, two people will not be able to agree even on whether they see each other.

A large amount of established facts leads us directly to the truth. The truth is in the addition of facts. And in the subtraction of errors.

A thousand observations confirming a phenomenon say that this phenomenon actually exists.

The totality of opinions, if they do not deliberately distort the truth, constitutes the truth.

It is always possible to add up the general from private opinions, if they do not contradict the truth.

One person is at the same time a multitude of people: one is what he imagines to be, and many more as he appears to other people. We will get bogged down in dozens and even hundreds of opinions, defining one person, and we will never come to a common definition. If we consider that the people consist of thousands of people, then we will have a myriad of definitions.

... some peoples boast to others, saying that they are better than others, and there is no end to this dispute, because no one knows for certain what is better here and what is worse here. Some things, of course, are obvious: ignorance, cruelty, deceit, deceit, arrogance cannot beautify any nation.

Relatives rush to the inheritance, like wolves on a sheep.

Lame Nicomache was a student at a famous Sophist - his name Aspasia do not remember - but, having become acquainted with Socrates, went from a former teacher, saying that Socrates is wiser because it teaches to reason, and not to remember all sorts of nonsense.

Someone who is young, it is possible to predict the great future - because nobody knows except the gods, of course, what he will become in later years. Youth is so wonderful and that she has a future.