Frasi di Apollonio di Tiana

“Onorando molti e fidando in pochi.”

“Perché il dio che ha concesso a lui di ispirare paura, a me ha concesso di non provarla.”

“Nella dottrina di Pitagora ho riconosciuto qualcosa di sublime: vedendo come per una forma misteriosa di sapienza conoscesse non soltanto chi era ma anche chi era stato, come si accostasse puro agli altari e non contaminasse il suo ventre con carne di animali, e mantenesse intatto il corpo da abiti tratti da esseri viventi, come primo fra tutti gli uomini abbia messo un freno alla sua lingua, "imponendo ad essa un bue" secondo il detto da lui inventato, e come per ogni altro aspetto abbia ispirato la sua filosofia a princìpi oracolari e veritieri. Così mi sono precipitato ad abbracciare i suoi precetti […].”

“Perché la terra che mi nutre provvede pure a vestirmi, e non voglio vessare i poveri animali.”

“Make yourself known as a philosopher, that is a free man.”

“I saw the Indian Brahmans living on the earth and not on it, walled without walls, and with no possessions except the whole world.”

“To speak falsely is the mark of a slave, but the truth is noble.”

“If someone gives money to Apollonius, and the giver is someone considered respectable, he will take the money if he needs it. But he will not accept a fee for philosophy even if he does need it.”

“You request my presence at the Olympic Games, and for that reason you have sent envoys. For myself, I would come for the spectacle of physical struggle, except that I would be abandoning the greater struggle for virtue.”

“Greet your son Aristocleides from me. I pray he may not turn out like you, since you, too, were once an irreproachable young man.”

“Pythagoras said that medicine is the most godlike of arts. But if the most godlike, it should tend to the soul as well as the body, or else a living thing must be unhealthy, being diseased in its higher part.”

“Approve and pursue the kind that is in accordance with nature. But avoid the kind that claims to be inspired: people like that about tell lies about Gods, and urge us to do many foolish things.”

“You must shun barbarians and not govern them since, barbarians as they are, it is not right that they should receive a benefit.”

“Plato said that virtue has no master [Republic 617e]. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself.”

“The soul that does not consider the question of the body’s self-sufficiency cannot make itself self-sufficient.”

“The natural philosopher Heraclitus said that man is naturally irrational. If this is true, as it is true, then everyone who enjoys futile glory should hide his face.”

“[Some] disobey the earth and sharpen knives against the animals to gain clothing and food. The Indian Brahmans disapproved of this personally and taught the Naked Philosophers of Egypt to disapprove of it too. From there Pythagoras, who was the first Greek to associate with Egyptians, borrowed the principle. He let the earth keep living creatures, but held that what the earth grows is pure, and so lived off that because it was sufficient to feed body and soul. Clothing made from dead creatures, which most people wear, he considered impure; he dressed in linen and, for the same reason, made his shoes of plaited bark. He derived many advantages from this purity, above all that of perceiving his own soul.”