Ottonieri was accustomed to read out passages from books taken at hazard, especially those of ancient writers. He would often interrupt himself by uttering some remark or comment on this or that passage. One day he read from Laertius' "Lives of the Philosophers," the passage where Chilo, being asked how the learned differed from the ignorant, is said to have replied, that the former possess 'hopes,' Ottonieri said: "Now all is changed. The ignorant hope, but the learned do not." Again, as he read in the same book how Socrates affirmed that the world contains but one benefit, knowledge, and but one evil, ignorance, he said: "I know nothing about the knowledge and ignorance of the ancients; but in the present day I should reverse this saying." Commenting on this maxim of Hegesias, also from the book of Laertius, "The wise man attends to his own interests in everything," he said: "If all men who carry out this principle be philosophers, Plato may come and establish his republic throughout the civilised world." He greatly praised the following saying of Bion Borysthenes, mentioned by Laertius: "They who seek the greatest happiness, suffer most." To this he added: "And they on the other hand are happiest who are contented with least, and who are accustomed to enjoy their happiness over again in memory." From Plutarch he read how Stratocles excited the anger of the Athenians by inducing them on a certain occasion to sacrifice as though they were victors; and how he then replied by demanding why they blamed him that he had made them happy and joyful for the space of three days. Ottonieri added: "Nature might make the same response to those who complain that she endeavours to conceal the truth beneath a multitude of vain but beautiful and pleasing appearances. How have I injured you, in making you happy for three or four days?" On another occasion he remarked that Tasso's saying about a child induced to take his medicine under a false belief, "he is nourished on deception," is equally applicable to all our race, in relation to the errors in which man puts faith.