Elli Pensa

“SOCRATE
Come va ad Atene?

MENIPPO
Molti giovanotti dicono di far filosofia, e a giudicare dai vestiti e dal modo di camminare, si tratterebbe di sommi filosofi!

SOCRATE
Ah, ne ho visti tanti davvero! [...] E di me che pensano?

MENIPPO
In questo, Socrate, sei un uomo fortunato. Tutti credono infatti che tu sia un uomo ammirevole, e tu sappia tutto, e per giunta senza sapere nulla! Quest'ultima cosa, però, penso che sia vera.

SOCRATE
Anch'io glielo dicevo sempre, ma loro credevano che si trattasse di un'ironia!

(Dialoghi dei morti, 6, Menippo ed Eaco)”
― Lucian of Samosata, Storia vera - Dialoghi dei morti

“The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.”
― Lucian of Samosata, Lucian's True History

“A monkey is always a monkey," says the proverb, "even if he has birth-tokens of gold." Although you have a book in your hand and read all the time, you do not under­stand a single thing that you read, but you are like the donkey that listens to the lyre and wags his ears.

If possessing books made their owner learned, they would indeed be a possession of great price, and only rich men like you would have them, since you could buy them at auction, as it were, outbidding us poor men. In that case, however, who could rival the dealers and booksellers for learning, who possess and sell so many books ? But if you care to look into the matter, you will see that they are not much superior to you in that point; they are barbarous of speech and obtuse in mind like you—just what one would expect people to be who have no conception of what is good and bad. Yet you have only two or three books which they themselves have sold you, while they handle books night and day.”
― Lucian of Samosata

“Anch'io, pertanto, mi impegnai, per civetteria, a lasciare qualcosa di mio ai posteri [...]; e visto che non avevo a disposizione fatti veri da raccontare —perché purtroppo non mi era mai successo niente di interessante— mi decisi a dire le bugie, ma bugie che si potessero riconoscere molto meglio di quelle che dicono gli altri: perché, infatti, almeno su un punto dirò la verità, se dichiaro che sto mentendo!

(Storia vera, I, 4)”
― Lucian of Samosata, Storia vera - Dialoghi dei morti