Philosophers are seekers after truth.
The discourse of a philosopher is vain, if no passion of man is healed thereby.
Choose the best life; use will make it pleasant.
Man is at his best when he visits the temples of the gods.
A man should never pray for anything for himself, because he is ignorant of what is really good for him.
Do not the least thing unadvisedly.
Advise before you act, and never let your eyes
The sweet refreshings of soft slumber taste,
Till you have thence severe reflections passed
On th' actions of the day from first to last.
Wherein have I transgressed? What done have I?
What duty unperformed have I passed by?
And if your actions ill on search you find,
Let grief, if good, let joy, possess your mind.
This do, this think, to this your heart incline,
This way will lead you to the Life Divine.
. . . . . .
This course, if you observe, you shall know then
The constitution both of gods and men.
And now from ill, Great Father, set us free,
Or teach us all to know ourselves in Thee.
The noblest gifts of heaven to man are to speak the truth and to do good. These two things resemble the works of the Deity.
Place intuition as the best charioteer or guide for thy acts.
Possess not treasures except those things which no one can take from you.
Be sleepless in the things of the Spirit, for sleep in them is akin to death.
Each of us is a soul, not a body, which is only a possession of the soul.
The tyrant death securely shalt thou brave,
And scorn the dark dominion of the grave.
The greatest honor which can be paid to the Deity is to know and imitate Its perfection.
The wise men say that one community embraces heaven and earth, and gods and men and friendship and order and temperance and righteousness; for which reason they call this whole a kosmos or orderly universe.
Of all things learn to revere your Self.
Likeness to the Deity should be the aim of all our endeavors. The nobler, the better the man, the more godlike he becomes, for the gods are the guardians and guides of men.
There is a relationship between men and gods, because men partake of the Divine Principle.
You have in yourself something similar to God; therefore use yourself as the Temple of God.
Be bold, O man! Divine thou art.
Truth is to be sought with a mind purified from the passions of the body. Having overcome evil things, thou shalt experience the union of the immortal God with the mortal man.
(b) the esoteric teachings
(1) Symbols
The esoteric teachings of Pythagoras, which he called "the Gnosis of Things that Are," or "the Knowledge of the Reality," so far as they can be gathered from the extant fragments, dealt with (1) Symbols, (2) Number, that is, the inner meaning of arithmetic and geometry, (3) Music, (4) Man, and (5) the Earth and the Universe. In his esoteric teachings Pythagoras gave out the keys to the system of practical ethics outlined in his exoteric sayings. Such of his public utterances as were called Symbols were mere blinds, capable of several interpretations with several distinct and highly important meanings attached to them. H. P. Blavatsky, speaking of these, says:
Every sentence of Pythagoras, like most of the ancient maxims, had (at least) a dual signification; and while it had an occult physical meaning expressed in its words, it embodied a moral precept.
It is no mere coincidence that many of the maxims were and still are current among widely separated nations. The following are examples of some Pythagorean Symbols together with their possible meanings as moral precepts:
"Do not devour your heart": that is, do not consume your vitality in futile grief.
"Do not devour your brain": that is, do not waste your time in idle thoughts.
"When you are traveling abroad, turn not back, for the furies will go with you": that is, do not dally or cry over spilt milk but hasten to accomplish whatever you have begun; otherwise you will fail, and remorse and sorrow will thereafter attend you.