Athenaeus Quotes

Athenaeus offers witty, slightly sarcastic reflections on food, storms and virtue for anyone who likes clever, everyday philosophy.

10 quotes

1. It was a saying of Demetrius Phalereus, that 'Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had,-being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity.'

2. Every investigation which is guided by principles of Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.

3. Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the 'Nautilus' of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.

4. Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.

5. It is the mark of a gentleman to be moderate in the use of wine.

6. Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.

7. 'It is very small for its age,' said Gnathaena.

8. the Egyptians became fond of wine and bibulous; and so a way was found among them to help those who could not afford wine, namely, to drink that made from barley; they who took it were so elated that they sang, danced, and acted in every way like persons filled with wine.

9. I have heard a greater storm in a boiling pot.

10. Fasting cures diseases, dries up bodily humors, puts demons to flight, gets rid of impure thoughts, makes the mind clearer and the heart purer, the body sanctified, and raises man to the throne of God.