Augustus Quotes

“Many people who are enjoying themselves are not, for all that, enjoying life. Indeed, if they were enjoying life, they would have no need to enjoy themselves.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“A philosopher can make the greatest difference, without needing to expose himself to the vagaries and indignities of the world, or even get out of bed.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“To open yourself to philosophy, you need to love the world more than you love yourself, because, in thinking, it is yourself that you risk.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“Only the philosopher, who knows the true value of things, is capable of love, and the thing he loves the most is philosophy.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“If we pursue excellence, wealth and honour are bound to follow, in the purest way, from the good that we have done. But if we pursue wealth, as it were, putting the cart before the horse, we may end up with only the wealth, without the honour, or the good, or the excellence, which, for a life well lived, are worth far more than mere wealth.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“Three are the classes of men who attend the Olympic Games. There are the lovers of honour who come to compete, the lovers of gain who come to buy and sell, and the lovers of wisdom who come simply to look upon the spectacle. Every man claims that his is the best way of life, but only the lover of wisdom is to be believed, because only he has experienced every kind of pleasure. And while a moneylender may someday turn out to be a lover of wisdom, it never happens that a lover of wisdom sets up stall as a moneylender.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“The pleasures of philosophy are marvellous both for their purity and their enduringness. Man, more than anything, is reason, and the life of reason is the most self-sufficient, the most pleasant, the happiest, the best, and the most godlike of all.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“While ants and bees, and perhaps even wolves, may be more social than human beings, we are by far the most rational of all animals. Just as leopards ought to excel at running if they are to count as good leopards, so human beings ought to excel at reasoning if they are to count as good human beings. If we aim instead to excel at running or jumping or making money, we have not properly understood what it means to be a human being. Thus, of one who boasted of his diving, Aristippus [a student of Socrates] asked, ‘Are you not ashamed to be proud of that which a dolphin can do?”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“Philosophy is the only study that is truly liberal, insofar as it is the only study that can liberate the soul. By comparison, all others are trifling and childish.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy

“I've decided that the colour of philosophy is somewhere between arterial blood and imperial purple.”
― Neel Burton, Augustus: Invitation to Philosophy