The moving light, rejoicing in its strength, Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way, In golden glory, like some strange new sun…

Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter – Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes – A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

For children preserve the fame of a man after his death.

What exists outside is a man’s concern; let no woman give advice; and do no mischief within doors.

When a man’s willing and eager, the gods join in.

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety

In few men is it part of nature to respect a friend’s prosperity without begrudging him.

I would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.

And there they ring the walls, the young, the lithe. The handsome hold the graves they won in Troy; the enemy earth rides over those who conquered.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.

Search well and be wise, nor believe that self-willed pride will ever be better than good counsel.

His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.

Everyone’s quick to blame the alien

By Time and Age full many things are taught.

For hostile word let hostile word be paid.

What good is it to live a life that brings pains?

Time brings all things to pass.

What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?

Who holds a power but newly gained is ever stern of mood

If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

God’s most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.

I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils

The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.

Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.

Every medicine is vain.

For somehow this is tyranny’s disease, to trust no friends.

Death is easier than a wretched life; and better never to have born than to live and fare badly.

For know that no one is free, except Zeus.

When a man’s willing and eager the god’s join in.

Wisdom comes alone through suffering.

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another’s might.

Call no man happy till he is dead.

It is a light thing for whoever keeps his foot outside trouble to advise and counsel him that suffers.

For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one’s life.

Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?

It is always in season for old men to learn.

When strength is yoked with justice, where is a mightier pair than they?

Since long I’ve held silence a remedy for harm.

There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.

Don’t you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?

For somehow this disease inheres in tyranny, never to trust one’s friends.

Who apart from the gods is without pain for his whole lifetime’s length?

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the...

Hell to ships, hell to men, hell to cities – of Helen of Troy

Ask the gods nothing excessive.

It is an ill thing to be the first to bring news of ill.