Theophrastus Quotations

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

We must consider the distinctive characters and the general nature of plants from the point of view of their morphology , their behavior under external conditions, their mode of generation, and the whole course of their life.

An orator without judgment is a horse without a bridle.

The man of petty ambition if invited to dinner will be eager to be set next his host.

Ah, yes, superstition: it would appear to be cowardice in face of the supernatural.

One may define flattery as a base companionship which is most advantageous to the flatterer.

Late-learning, I think, is the desire for learning inconsistent with one's advanced age.

The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes up to you when you are head over ears in work and confides to you all about it. He serenades his mistress when she is ill with fever. He approaches a man who has been cast in a surety case and asks him to stand surety for him. He appears to give evidence after the verdict is given.

Anaximenes ... also says that the underlying nature is one and infinite ... but not undefined as Anaximander said but definite, for he identifies it as air; and it differs in its substantial nature by rarity and density. Being made finer it becomes fire; being made thicker it becomes wind, then cloud, then (when thickened still more) water, then earth, then stones; and the rest come into being from these.

Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the supernatural.

I would define boastfulness to be the pretension to good which the boaster does not possess.

If you are an ignorant man, you are acting wisely; but if you have had any education, you are behaving like a fool.

Slovenliness is a lazy and beastly negligence of a man's own person, whereby he becomes so sordid as to be offensive to those about him.

Our costliest expenditure is time.

Alcmaeon was the first to define the difference between man and animals, saying that man differs from the latter in the fact that he alone has the power of understanding.

Waste of time is the most extravagant and costly of all expenses.

The sound of the flute will cure epilepsyand sciatic gout.

Beauty is a mute deception.

Love is the affection of a mind that has nothing better to engage it.

Remember that life holds out many pleasing deceits to us by the vanity of glory; for that when we are beginning to live, then we are dying. There is, therefore, nothing more profitless than ambition.

True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come without invitation.