top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Greek Authors
"The wisest men follow their own direction."
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
"Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others."
"To speak much is one thing, to speak to the point another!"
"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."
"The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself."
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
"Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal."
"Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act."
"We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us."
"He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power."
"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
"Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good had been aptly described as that at which everything aims."
"The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
"Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics."
"To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less."
"For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man."
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant."
"One can with but moderate possessions do what one ought."
"The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness."
"Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine."
"For there are two reasons why human beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or they may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea people may feel confident about what will happen either because they have no experience of bad weather, or because their experience gives them the means of dealing with it."
"Is it not true that the clever rogue is like the runner who runs well for the first half of the course, but flags before reaching the goal: he is quick off the mark, but ends in disgrace and slinks away crestfallen and uncrowned. The crown is the prize of the really good runner who perseveres to the end."
"It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not."
bottom of page