"Leave the vinegar at a distance"—keep sweet.
"Speak not in the face of the sun"—even Erasmus thought this referred to magic. To us it is quite reasonable to suppose that it meant, "do not talk too much in public places."
"Pick not up what falls from the table"—Plutarch calls this superstition, but we can just as easily suppose it was out of consideration for cats, dogs or hungry men. The Bible has a command against gleaning too closely, and leaving nothing for the traveler.
"When making sacrifice, never pare your nails"—that is to say, do one thing at a time: wind not the clock at an inopportune time.
"Eat not in the chariot"—when you travel, travel.
"Feed not yourself with your left hand"—get your living openly and avoid all left-handed dealings.
And so there are hundreds of these Pythagorean sayings that have vexed our classic friends for over two thousand years. All Greek scholars who really pride themselves on their scholarship have taken a hand at them, and agitated the ether just as the members of the Kokomo Woman's Club discuss obscure passages in Bliss Carman or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Learned people are apt to comprehend anything but the obvious.
he School of Pythagoras grew until it became the chief attraction of Crotona. The size of the town was doubled through the pilgrims who came to study music, mathematics, medicine, ethics and the science of government.
The Pythagorean plan of treating the sick by music was long considered as mere incantation, but there is a suspicion now that it was actual science. Once there was a man who rode a hobby all his life; and long after he was dead, folks discovered it was a real live horse and had carried the man long miles.