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8238 | Seeking peace through war is like looking for fish up a tree [Mengzi (Mencius)] |
Full Idea: Your desire to extend your territory by war, in order to bring peace, is like looking for fish by climbing a tree. | |
From: Mengzi (Mencius) (The Mengzi (Mencius) [c.332 BCE], 1.A.7) | |
A reaction: Mencius had a flair for analogies. Just occasionally I suppose he might be wrong on this point, but I would think that experiments in the laboratory of history have shown that he is right in nearly all cases. |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |