Note 48 — ETHICAL FRAGMENTS OF HIEROCLES,
Thomas Taylor translation
viz. Such circumstances as induced Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, and many other ancient philosophers, not to engage in wedlock, because they found that they could give greater assistance to philosophy by continuing single; but Pythagoras and Socrates, though they rank among the wisest men that ever lived, did not find a married life incompatible with the cultivation of philosophy in the highest perfection possible to man. Wedlock, therefore, is never to be avoided from any sordid and selfish motives.