Quotes by Greek Authors - Page 2

I am a citizen not of Athens or Greece but of the world.
Socrates
In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other side.
Euripides
Every specific human being, however, thinks, judges, imagines, wills and expresses himself or herself in a unique, dissimilar, and unrepeatable mode--a mode of unpredictable difference, or otherness, which objectively defies description or delimitation.
Christos Yannaras
A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. "If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn't have to live on lentils."Diogenes replied, "But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn't have to flatter Dionysus.
Diogenes of Sinope
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others.
Plutarch
All men are more concerned to recover what they lose than to acquire what they lack.
Aesop
He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest.
Diogenes Laërtius
It isn't death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest.
Epictetus
That man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more garnering the simple goodness of life.
Euripides
Who can stop grief's avalanche once it starts to roll.
Euripides
Justice without compassion is but tyranny
Nicholas C. Rossis
We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life.
Epictetus
Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
Socrates
That which wounds, shall heal.
Apollo
We follow the ways of wolves, the habits of tigers: or, rather we are worse than they. To them nature has assigned that they should be thus fed, while God has honoured us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we are become worse than the wild beast.
John Chrysostom
I tried to establish order over the chaos of my imagination, but this essence, the same that presented itself to me still hazily when I was a child, has always struck me as the very heart of truth. It is our duty to set ourselves an end beyond our individual concerns, beyond our convenient, agreeable habits, higher than our own selves, and disdaining laughter, hunger, even death, to toil night and day to attain that end. No, not to attain it. The self-respecting soul, as soon as he reaches his goal, places it still further away. Not to attain it, but never to halt in the ascent. Only thus does life acquire nobility and oneness.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Now if a man thus favoured died as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word "happy" in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky...
Herodotus
Wherever a doctor cannot do good he must be kept from doing harm.
Hippocrates
Even now I am full of hope but the end lies in God.
Pindar
Plodding wins the race.
Aesop
When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
Basil the Great
How many things can I do without?
Socrates
In a just cause the weak will beat the strong!
Sophocles
—so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car, sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofs and churning, whirling rims—and the son of Peleus charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filth splattering both strong arms, Achilles' invincible arms—
Homer
Your very silence shows you agree.
Euripides
He said he'd hurt himself against a wall or had fallen down.But there was probably some other reason for the wounded, the bandaged shoulder.With a rather abrupt gesture, reaching for a shelf to bring down some photographs he wanted to look at, the bandage came came undone and a little blood ran.I did it up again, taking my time over the binding; he wasn't in pain and I liked looking at the blood. It was a thing of my love, that blood.When he left, I found, in front of his chair, a bloody rag, part of the dressing, a rag to be thrown straight into the garbage; and I put it to my lips and kept it there a long while- the blood of love against my lips.
Constantinos P. Cavafis
Difficulties are things that show what men are.
Epictetus
If thou sustain injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it
Democritus
If the past is no longer presentis it fiction?
Natasha Tsakos
[On the virtuous man] "He combines the highest, lowest and middle chords in complete harmony within himself.
Plato
Each citizen should play his part in the community according to his individual gifts.
Plato
Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and gives them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune...
Plutarch
Know thyself.
Socrates
One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
Socrates
The tongue of man is a twisty thing.
Homer
Leave no stone unturned.
Euripides
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk and then in the morning when they are sober the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made and if it is then approved they act on it if not they set it aside. Sometimes however they are sober at their first deliberations but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.
Herodotus
Learn what you are and be such.
Pindar
I wonder if it is the same for women, whether women always feel this pain when they are fucked? Or is it only in sodomy that pain and pleasure are so linked, so inextricable?
Christos Tsiolkas
You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.
Nikos Kazantzakis
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
Socrates
Whatever you are dreaming of to create wait not for other people doing it for you.Give breath in your dreams, your creations.Become the Creator in your small or greater dreams!
Katerina Kostaki
People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the citys walls.
Heraclitus
Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out; and that is far the most unhappy thing of all. -Cassandra
Aeschylus
Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself.
Plato
Painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting with the gift of speech
Simonides
If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
Epicurus
The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.
Epicurus
Un soir qu'ils étaient couchés l'un près de l'autre, comme elle lui demandait d'inventer un poème qui commencerait par je connais un beau pays, il s'exécuta sur-le-champ. Je connais un beau pays Il est de l'or et d'églantine Tout le monde s'y sourit Ah quelle aventure fine Les tigres y sont poltrons Les agneaux ont fière mine À tous les vieux vagabonds Ariane donne des tartines. Alors, elle lui baisa le la main, et il eut honte de cette admiration.
Albert Cohen
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
Plato
He imagined forgiveness was like flying, that it made you soar. He imagined that it looked like an eagle, a silver bolt in the sky, that it was pure light.
Christos Tsiolkas
Never in my life had I felt so tangibly and with such astonishment that hate, by passing successively through comprehension, mercy, and sympathy, can be transformed into love.
Nikos Kazantzakis
It’s about running wild in a field of exclamation points chasing question marks
Natasha Tsakos
The only crime is pride.
Sophocles
Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.
Epicurus
The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs.
Plato
Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one—so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim—the greater man.
Homer
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell Is he who hiding one thing in his heart Utters another.
Homer
TEIRESIAS:You have your eyes but see not where you arein sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with.Do you know who your parents are? Unknowingyou are enemy to kith and kinin death, beneath the earth, and in this life.
Sophocles