"Theophrastus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... protest against the outrages on taste. We are told the Athenians were also merciless critics in such matters. Nay, there is a famous anecdote perpetually cited as an illustration of Athenian delicacy in matters of pronunciation, that Theophrastus was known to be a foreigner even by a herbseller. People who wonder at every thing recorded of the Greeks, will regard us probably as reckless iconoclasts if we break that by a stone flung from common ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... a man illustrious by his genius, by his style, and by his knowledge of men, I mean La Bruyere, who died of apoplexy at Versailles, after having surpassed Theophrastus in his own manner, and after painting, in the new characters, the men of our days in a manner inimitable. He was besides a very honest man, of excellent breeding, simple, very disinterested, and without anything of the pedant. I had sufficiently known ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archimedes; it was long before biological science outgrew the knowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus and ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... asham'd to acknowledge how little I have advanced, could I find that ever any Mortal Man from Adam, Noah, Solomon, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and the rest of Nature's Interpreters, had ever arriv'd to the perfect Knowledge of any one Plant, or Vulgar Weed whatsoever: But this perhaps may yet possibly be reserv'd for another State of Things, and a [3]longer Day; that is, When Time shall be ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... agn] became a part of the older Anthesteria after the invention of comedy, and that even then the old custom was kept up. In Athenus we find[17l] the Page 71 Samian Lynceus sojourning in Athens and commiserated as passing his time listening to the lectures of Theophrastus and seeing the Lenaea and Chytri, in contrast to the lavish Macedonian feasts of his correspondent. The latter in the same connection says[172] that certain men, probably players, who had filled a part in Athens at the Chytri, came in to amuse ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... need of long sleep, warm bathing, freedom from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they were continually sick. It was certainly an extraordinary thing to have brought about such a result as this, but a greater yet to have taken away from wealth, as Theophrastus observes, not merely the property of being coveted, but its very nature of being wealth. For the rich, being obliged to go to the same table with the poor, could not make use of or enjoy their abundance, nor so much as please their vanity by looking at or displaying it. So that the ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... suffering from senile decay, let him, if he will, acquire some learning even at the eleventh hour. Let him read the works of the philosophers of old, that now at any rate he may learn that I am not the first ichthyologist, but follow in the steps of authors, centuries my seniors, such as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Eudemus, Lycon, and the other successors of Plato, who have left many books on the generation, life, parts and differences of animals. It is a good thing, Maximus, that this case is being tried before a scholar like yourself, who have read Aristotle's numerous volumes 'on the generation, the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Sweat" is well-known by name. The disease is rare and few have seen it whilst it has a certain quasi-supernatural sound from the "Agony and bloody sweat" in the Garden of Gethsemane. But the exudation of blood from the skin was described by Theophrastus and Aristotle and lastly by Lucan ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of sundry persons," such as the Good Schoolmaster, the Clown, the Country Magistrate; much as in some modern Heads of the People where Douglas Jerrold or Leigh Hunt sketches the Medical Student, the Monthly Nurse, etc. A still more modern instance of the kind is George Eliot's Impressions of Theophrastus Such, which derives its title from the Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, whose character-sketches were the original models of this kind of literature. The most popular character-book in Europe in the 17th century was La Bruyere's Caracteres. But {93} this ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... signal success, and they were followed by a series of seven novels, beginning in 1858 with "Adam Bede," "the finest thing since Shakespeare," Charles Reade in his enthusiasm said, the whole winding up with the "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" in 1879; these, with two volumes of poems, make up her works; Lewes died in 1878, and two years after she formally married an old friend, Mr. John Cross, and after a few months of wedded life died of inflammation of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... streams of moist mud ([Greek words]) originated in a faint recollection of the salses (mud volcanoes) of Agrigentum, which, as I have already mentioned, eject argillaceous mud with a loud noise. It is much to be regretted, in reference to this subject, that the work of Theophrastus [Greek words] 'On the Volcanic Stream in Sicily', to which Diog. Laert., v., 49, refers, has not come ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of the Age." The personages introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known, and conspicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by Steele in his last paper; and of the Spectator by Budgell in the preface to "Theophrastus," a book which Addison has recommended, and which he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those portraits which may be supposed to be sometimes embellished, and sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten. But to say that they united the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... name even did not rouse the recollections of poor Raoul. The persistent servant went on to relate that Guiche had just invented a new game of lottery, and was teaching it to the ladies. Raoul, opening his large eyes, like the absent man in Theophrastus, had made no answer, but his sadness had increased by it two shades. With his head hanging down, his limbs relaxed, his mouth half open for the escape of his sighs, Raoul remained, thus forgotten, in the antechamber, when all at once a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... instructive signification, and for this end we may very properly consult the meanings given in several standard dictionaries and lexicons, for in them we expect to find precision of statement, although in this instance I believe we shall be disappointed. Theophrastus, who lived several centuries before the Christian era, defines "Superstition" according to the translation given of his definition in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, as "A cowardly state of mind with respect to the supernatural," and supplies the following illustration: "The superstitious ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... claimed relationship with the noble family of Bombast von Hohenheim; but some of his biographers doubt whether he really was connected with that family. His name, or at any rate the name by which he was known, was Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. His father in alchemy, Trimethius, Abbot of Spannheim and then of Wurzburg, who was a theologian, a poet, an astronomer, and a necromancer, named him Paracelsus; this name is taken by some to be a kind of Graeco-Latin paraphrase of von ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... VII. Theophrastus, where he compares sin with sin (as after a vulgar sense such things I grant may be compared:) says well and like a philosopher, that those sins are greater which are committed through lust, than those which are committed ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... form. Philosophy left later exponents in Zeno, Epicurus, and many others, and history in Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian, and others of note. Science, as developed by Aristotle and Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was carried forward by many others, including Theophrastus, the able successor of Aristotle; Euclid, the first great geometer; Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, the astronomers; and, latest of ancient scientists, Ptolemy, whose works on astronomy and geography became the ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... he published a very elegant translation of Theophrastus's Characters, which Mr. Addison in the Lover says, 'is the best version extant of any ancient author in the English language.' It was dedicated to the lord Hallifax, who was the greatest patron our author ever had, and with whom he always lived in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... experiments to test his conclusions, and thus he awakes to the vigorous exercise of all his powers. These physical conditions must develop a hardy, vigorous, prudent, and temperate race; and such, unquestionably, were the Greeks. "Theophrastus, and other authors, amply attest the observant and industrious agriculture prevalent in Greece. The culture of the vine and olive appears to have been particularly elaborate and the many different accidents of soil, level, and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... universal than mine, and the purists, who may criticise in my style some Italian turns will be quite right, but only in case it should prevent them from understanding me clearly. The Greeks admired Theophrastus in spite of his Eresian style, and the Romans delighted in their Livy in spite of his Patavinity. Provided I amuse my readers, it seems to me that I can claim the same indulgence. After all, every Italian reads Algarotti with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... later times much of this more frivolous superstition passed away—although Theophrastus speaks of such lesser omens with the same witty disdain as that with which the Spectator ridicules our fears at the upsetting of a salt-cellar, or the appearance of a winding-sheet in a candle,—yet, in the more interesting period of Greece, these popular credulities were not disdained by the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we are in, I would like to read to you a passage out of a round-about paper written by a satirist of Greece about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah in Jerusalem. You will easily remark the difference of tone between the seriousness and pathos of the Hebrew prophet and the light and chaffing touch of Theophrastus. "The Flatterer is a person," says that satirist of Greek society, "who will say to you as he walks with you, 'Do you observe how people are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but to you. A fine compliment was paid you yesterday ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... health by indulgence to excess in every bodily desire, long sleep, warm baths, and much repose, so that they required a sort of daily nursing like sick people. This was a great advantage, but it was a greater to render wealth valueless, and, as Theophrastus says, to neutralise it by their common dining-table and the simplicity of their habits. Wealth could not be used, nor enjoyed, nor indeed displayed at all in costly apparatus, when the poor man dined at the same table with the rich; so that the well-known saying, that "wealth ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... aspects without these prejudices. And hence it is that Seneca observes, wood most expos'd to the winds to be the most strong and solid, and that therefore Chiron made Achilles's spear of a mountain-tree; and of those the best, which grow thin, not much shelter'd from the north. Again, Theophrastus seems to have special regard to places; exemplifying in many of Greece, which exceeded others for good timber, as doubtless do our oaks in the Forest of Dean all others of England: And much certainly there ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... voyage; for I was so far from thinking of soon coming back, that I rather thought never to have returned at all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works: I had also Theophrastus on Plants, which, to my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it carelessly by, while we were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in many places torn out the leaves. They have no books of grammar ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... garden of Alcinous "pears and pomegranates, and apple-trees bearing beautiful fruit" (kai maeleui aglaokarpoi). And according to Homer, apples were among the fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew and described ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... would still be famous without the exquisitely appropriate music that has come down to us from Jonson's own time, and which are no less beautiful because they consist largely of ideas culled from the Greek philosopher Theophrastus. In all his poems, however, Jonson aims consistently at the classical virtues of clearness, brevity, proportion, finish, and elimination of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... added themselves to those of necessity, we find the same spirit of invention at work. We have no historic account of the first brewer, but we glean from history that his art was practised, and its produce relished, more than two thousand years ago. Theophrastus, who was born nearly four hundred years before Christ, described beer as the wine of barley. It is extremely difficult to preserve beer in a hot country, still, Egypt was the land in which it was first brewed, the desire of man to quench his thirst with this exhilarating ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... flute-player, and quoted the Greek philosopher Democritus (born about B. C. 480) as authority for the statement that the same remedy had power to heal wounds inflicted by venomous serpents. According to Theophrastus, a disciple of Plato and Aristotle (B. C. 374-286), gout could be cured by playing a flute over the affected limb;[179:1] and the Latin author Martianus Capella, who flourished about A. D. 490, asserted that music had been successfully employed in the treatment ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... more, with characteristic additions equally creditable to human weakness or ingenuity. It is truly lamentable to reflect that while the rational and on the whole truthful descriptions of Aristotle and Theophrastus were extant and accessible, Pliny's nonsense should in preference have gained the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... lived before Albert can be compared with him unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so profoundly until the time of Conrad ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years; And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten Had but begun his "Characters of Men;" Chaucer at Woodstock with his nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past: These are indeed exceptions; ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... times, although the localities in which it anciently grew have been carefully explored.] It is, however, said that the yew tree, Taxus baccata, formerly very common in England, Germany, and—as we are authorized to infer from Theophrastus—in Greece, has almost wholly disappeared from the latter country, and seems to be dying out in Germany. The wood of the yew surpasses that of almost any other European tree in closeness and fineness of grain, and it is well known for the elasticity ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the class of encyclopedists than of historians, is Pompeius Trogus, the descendant of a family of Narbonese Gaul, which had for two generations enjoyed the Roman citizenship. Besides works on zoology and botany, translated or adapted from the Greek of Aristotle and Theophrastus, Trogus wrote an important History of the World, exclusive of the Roman Empire, which served as, and may have been designed to be, a complement to that of Livy. The original work, which extended to forty-four books, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... preceptor in history to the grandson of the great Conde, saw with the keen eyes of a disenchanted observer the spectacle of seventeenth-century society. In 1688, appended to his translation of the Characters of Theophrastus, appeared his only important work, Les Caracteres ou les Moeurs de ce Siecle; revised and enlarged editions followed, until the ninth was published in 1696. "I restore to the public," he wrote, "what the public lent me." In ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Theophrastus ... To which is prefix'd A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings (London, 1725), pp. 98-99. Reproduced, with an Introduction by Alexander H. Chorney, as Augustan Reprint Society Publication ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... Libro de morbo sacro (siue illius sit, siue alterius, nam de authore apud eruditos dubitatio est) statim ab initio. & quaeda huc pertinentiae habet Theophrastus de ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... (Filix mas) or Shield Fern, grows abundantly in all parts of Great Britain, and has been known from the times of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, as a specific remedy for intestinal worms, particularly the tape worm. For medicinal purposes, the green part of the rhizome is kept and dried; this is then powdered, and its oleo-resin is extracted by ether. The green fixed ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... appropriate both to the season and a pretty flower; "Bulbous Violet" pleasantly alludes to its sweetness; all are poetical, as if this lovely flower had the same effect on the different minds of those (including Linnaeus) who first gave them. A dropped name for the Snowdrop was that of "Gilloflower"; Theophrastus, the father of natural history, gave it the name of "Violet" (Viola alba or V. bulbosa)—that would be 2100 years ago! The bulbs should be planted by thousands; they will grow anywhere and in any kind of soil; ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... library, including the MSS. of his own works, is interesting and even romantic. Aristotle's successor in the school was Theophrastus, who added to the library bequeathed him by Aristotle many works of his own, and others purchased by him. Theophrastus bequeathed the entire library to Neleus, his friend and pupil, who, on leaving Athens to reside at Scepsis ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... comparatively fresh air, and having taken a little exercise. Best of all, we have started a new set of associations; we have paved the way for new acquaintances, Linnaeus, Gray, Dioscorides and Theophrastus, to say nothing of our friend so-and-so whom we always thought rather tiresome but with whom we now have something in common. We shall take up our daily grind to-morrow with a new zest for having forgotten it ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D. |
