For as long as man has lived the human race has been collecting tiny stipulations on living life. They're carved into the stone from the Temple of Apollo and etched in writing on the wall of Pompeii. They are featured in the Shakespeare plays, the commonplace book of Shakespeare as well as the book of commonplace from H. P. Lovecraft and the collection of proverbs by Erasmus, and the ceiling beams from Montaigne's study. Nowadays, they're recorded on iPhones and also on Evernote.
Whatever generation is writing it, regardless of whether they're written by scribes from China or commoners in a European prison or handed down by a thoughtful grandfather, these small epigrams of advice for life have provided essential lessons. How to deal with the challenges. The way to approach money. How to think about our mortality. How to be courageous.
They can pack everything into so few words. "What is an epigram?" Coleridge asked, "A dwarfish whole; Its body brevity, and wit its soul." Epigrams are exactly what Churchill was saying when he said: "To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often." Or Balzac: "All happiness depends on courage and work." Epigrams can be funny as well. This is why we keep them in mind. Napoleon: "Never interrupt an enemy making a mistake." Francois de La Rochefoucauld: "We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us." Voltaire: "A long dispute means that both parties are wrong."
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Here are some amazing epigrams that span 3 continents and 21 centuries. Each one is worthy of being remembered and stored in your head for the moment you're at a crossroads or for the right time in conversations. Each will evolve and change as you grow (Heraclitus: "No man steps in the same river twice") and yet, each remains steadfast and unshakeable regardless of how much you might try to get a move away from them.
In essence, all of them will show you how to become a better human. If you allow them.
"We must all go through a process of deterioration or we will rust out every one of them. My preference would be to wear down." --- Theodore Roosevelt
At the start of his career, very few would have believed the possibility that Theodore Roosevelt even could have a say on the subject. He was ill and fragile and was adored by his worried parents. A conversation with his father had him racing in a mad maniacal drive in the opposite direction. "I will make my body," said he declared, after being told that it was not possible to make it in the world with a brilliant brain with a weak body. The next few minutes were a series of hiking, boxing, hunts, horseback riding swimming, fishing, fighting the fire from enemies, and a strenuous job to be one of the most productive and well-liked leaders in American history. The epigram, as always, was a prophetic message for Roosevelt as he was only 54 his body was beginning to deteriorate. A failed attack on his life resulted in a bullet being stuck in his body, and it aggravated rheumatoid arthritis. On the famed "River of Doubt" trip, he was struck by an illness known as a tropical fever. The poisons from an infection in his leg caused him to nearly dead. After returning to America the man developed a serious throat infection and was later diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis, that temporarily restricted him to the wheelchair (saying famously, "All right! I'm able to work that way also!") and then the time came for his death at age 60. There isn't anyone on earth who will say that the man had not done a fair trade, or that it was not a good thing that he'd lived his life to the fullest and lived to the fullest over the course of the sixty years.
"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." Epictetus
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The story is about a father who is an alcoholic with two sons. One of them follows in the footsteps of his father and is destined to live a life as an alcoholic while the other turns out to be an entrepreneur who is successful and sober. Everyone is asked, "Why are you the way you are?" The answer to both of them is identical: "Well, it's because my father was an alcoholic." The same incident and the same childhood experience with two different results. This holds true for virtually every situation. What we experience is an absolute reality, and how we react to it is a personal choice. The Stoics - of whom Epictetus of course was one of them -- believe that we aren't in control of the events that happen to us, all we can control is our thoughts and our reactions to the events that happen to us. Keep in mind that you are identified in the world of today not by luck or luck, but rather by your reaction to these occurrences. Don't believe anyone who says that you're not.
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