Pythagoras
Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism, often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist.
If thy fellows hurt thee in small things, suffer it! and be as bold with them!
Meditate upon my counsels; love them; follow them;
To the divine virtues will they know how to lead thee.
I swear it by the One who in our hearts engraved
The sacred Tetrad, symbol immense and pure,
Source of Nature and model of the Gods.
Reason not with him, that will deny the principal truths!
Rejoice not in another man's misfortune!
Above and before all things, worship GOD!
After his father's death, though he was still but a youth, his aspect was so venerable, and his habits so temperate that he was honored and even reverenced by elderly men, attracting the attention of all who saw and heard him speak, creating the most profound impression. That is the reason that many plausibly asserted that he was a child of the divinity. Enjoying the privilege of such a renown, of an education so thorough from infancy, and of so impressive a natural appearance he showed that he deserved all these advantages by deserving them, by the adornment of piety and discipline, by exquisite habits, by firmness of soul, and by a body duly subjected to the mandates of reason. An inimitable quiet and serenity marked all his words and actions, soaring above all laughter, emulation, contention, or any other irregularity or eccentricity; his influence at Samos was that of some beneficent divinity. His great renown, while yet a youth, reached not only men as illustrious for their wisdom as Thales at Miletus, and Bias at Prione, but also extended to the neighboring cities. He was celebrated everywhere as the "long-haired Samian," and by the multitude was given credit for being under divine inspiration.
Govern your tongue before all other things, following the gods.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Reason is immortal, all else mortal.
Pythagoras' teachings have enormous relevance in understanding both the sources of our culture and, perhaps more importantly, where it may be heading or may need to head. But to appreciate this we have to understand him in modern terms.
Let thy mind rule thy tongue!
In this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
Pythagoras, as everyone knows, said that "all things are numbers." This statement, interpreted in a modern way, is logical nonsense, but what he meant was not exactly nonsense. He discovered the importance of numbers in music and the connection which he established between music and arithmetic survives in the mathematical terms "harmonic mean" and "harmonic progression." He thought of numbers as shapes, as they appear on dice or playing cards. We still speak of squares or cubes of numbers, which are terms that we owe to him. He also spoke of oblong numbers, triangular numbers, pyramidal numbers, and so on. These were the numbers of pebbles (or as we would more naturally say, shot) required to make the shapes in question.
Most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth and power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge.
Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine,
And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine.
Use examples; that such as thou teachest may understand thee the better!
Pythagoras was a teacher of the purest system of morals ever propounded to man.
Those alone are dear to Divinity who are hostile to injustice.
The concept of a harmonious universe ordered according to "the Great Chain of Being" — a chain that connects the continuum of matter, body, mind, soul and spirit — stands as one of the most fundamental ideas of western thought. ... It continues to be a profound influence upon the deepest strata of our thought. And yet a major rift has appeared in the consciousness of our time because the theme of harmonia has not been translated into the realm of human conduct. The challenge of our time may be to revive it, and make divine harmony "the great theme" of the next millennium. Any success we have in accomplishing this will be based, in large part, on the achievements of Pythagoras.