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Quotes by Greek Authors

"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."

"It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens."


"Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you.All men make mistakes, it is only human.But once the wrong is done, a mancan turn his back on folly, misfortune too,if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen,and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornnessbrands you for stupidity - pride is a crime."


"Time, which sees all things, has found you out."

"To perceive is to suffer."

"The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole."

"We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue."

"The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died."

"Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity."

"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."

"Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given."

"This is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others."

"Necessity... the mother of invention."

"The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."

"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men."

"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."


"CHORUS:You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus,- him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful; not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot- see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain."


"Shall not ILearn place and wisdom? Have I not learned this,Only so much to hate my enemy,As though he might again become my friend,And so much good to wish to do my friend,As knowing he may yet become my foe?"
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