Quotes by Greek Authors - Page 12

Seize time by the forelock.
Pittacus of Mitylene
There is a kind of flame in Crete - let us call it "soul" - something more powerful than either life or death. There is pride, obstinacy, valor, and together with these something else inexpressible and imponderable, something which makes you rejoice that you are human being, and at the same time tremble. (Report to Greco)
N. Kazantzakis
.. is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange?- and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them.
Socrates
There was the girl, screaming like an angry bird,When it finds its nest left empt and little ones gone." - Sentry
Sophocles
Doubt is what keeps the heart and mind of every man alive. It 's what makes us think twice.
Vasileios Kalampakas
The flute of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has never left us and it is essential that we train our ear to detect its false notes because in our case the flute is being played by the rats.
Dimitris Mita
the matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice ...
Plato
Having sent gifts and messengers to the oracle at Delphi, the king of the Lydians sent this message: "[The king] asks you again now whether he shall march against the Persians, and if so, whether he shall join with himself any army of men as allies." The oracle replied that, "if he should march against the Persians he should destroy a great empire."Little did he know which empire he was to destroy. It was to be his own, of course, as Cyrus the Great was ascendant.Quotations from Herodotus' Histories.
Horodotus
Do not try to lead men who are unwilling to follow you; if their heart is not in it, you will never find the old spirit or the old courage.
Arrian
The present will not long endure.
Pindar
To find the Father of all is hard. And when found, it is impossible to utter Him.
Socrates
You know well as I do that when we are talking on the human plane, questions of justice only arise when there is equal power to compel: in terms of practicality the dominant exact what they can and the weak concede what they must. (Said by Athenian envoy to the Melians)
Thucydides
Only super-efforts count.
G.I. Gurdjieff
There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself-an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.
Antisthenes
- If you could describe my son in 3 words, what would you say? - Sweet. Cute. Funny. - That could be a description of a puppy she says dryly.
Mary Papas
ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred with out a head
Euripides
In humans (and humans alone), sexuality is embodied in desire--in the primordial desire for life-as-relation. That the sex drive serves the vital desire for relation--that on the level of the primordial process, the desire for life-in-itself clothes itself in the sex drive--belongs to the particularity of being human.
Christos Yannaras
...[S]ome of the opinions which people entertain should be respected, and others should not.
Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
Socrates
Just as God, above all, is free of every need and self-interest, the spiritual man who has the Spirit struggles and becomes perfected in the love according to Christ, love that is delivered of all need and self-interest.
John Romanides
In these circumstances they did what most of us do, and, being ignorant of the truth, persuaded themselves into believing what they wished to believe.
Arrian
Light is the task when many share the toil.
Homer
The test of any man lies in action.
Pindar
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
Laertius Diogenes
The words we choose to use when we communicate with each other, carry vibrations. The word ‘war’ carries a whole different vibration than the word ‘peace’. The words we use are showing how we think and how we feel. The careful selection of words, helps to elevate our consciousness and resonate in higher frequencies.
Grigoris Deoudis
On Love and Happiness:When someone embarks on his research, if he ever makes it, (there is, in addition, a contingency that he/she will never embark on it), then he sails on a journey, a course that incubates various events.It's like opening a precious gift that hides myriads of secrets. Nobody acknowledges its content unless he attempts to inspect it.Happiness is not always dominated by heavenly chances, blue and green seashores of euphoria and pink clouds of serenity. Happiness does not dwell in luxurious mansions and expensive cars neither in glamorous appearances.Many times Unhappiness and loneliness lurk behind the ledges of luxury and surface brightness.There are so many examples around us, in newspapers, magazines, television and radio of people who are plunged in uncertainty, grief and insecurity.I wonder why this is.
Katerina Kostaki
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
Plato
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
Plutarch
If a separate personal Paradise exists for each of us, mine must be irreparably planted with trees of words which the wind silvers like poplars, by people who see their confiscated justice given back, and by birds that even in the midst of truth of death insist on singing in Greek and saying eros, eros, eros.
Odysseus Elytis
Prefiero, señor, obrar bien y fracasar, antes que triunfar con malas artes.Palabras de Neoptólemo a Odiseo, en la tragedia griega Filoctetes.
Sophocles
War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.
Heraclitus
It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.
Epictetus
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
You've got to keep fighting - you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
Elia Kazan
It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.
Epictetus
Life's true face is the skull.
Nikos Kazantzakis
As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.
Plato
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Heraclitus
They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.
Dinos Christianopoulos
Very few things happen at the right time and the rest do not happen at all the conscientious historian will correct these defects.
Herodotus
Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.
Demosthenes
Πως μπορώ να κρατήσω ένα τόσο αγνό πλάσμα κοντά μου; Μόνο και μόνο που αναπνέει τον ίδιο αέρα με μένα, νιώθω να την μολύνω.
Nektaria Markaki
Live a life of friction. Let yourself be disturbed as much as possible, but observe.
G.I. Gurdjieff
...This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother; He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, "You're my friends, don't you understand that? We're brothers. I'm not...I don't hold hell in my hands. I am not threatening you. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.
Elder Porphyrios
A man who preserves his integrity no real, long-lasting harm can ever come.
Socrates
For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.
Aeschylus
No man ever wetted clay and then left it as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
Plutarch
The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.
Sophocles
For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people.
Plutarch
The struggle between God and man breaks out in everyone, together with the longing for reconciliation. Most often this struggle is unconscious and short-lived. A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends. But among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
Plato
Learn what you are and be such.
Pindar
...Feel no fear before the multitude of men, do not run in panic,but let each man bear his shield straight toward the fore-fighters,regarding his own life as hateful and holding the dark spirits of death as dear as the radiance of the sun.
Tyrtaeus
A coward turns away but a brave man's choice is danger.
Euripides
O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good.
Euripides
We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.
Diogenes Laërtius
Of all the things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
Epicurus
Sameron adion asoI shall sing a sweeter song tomorrow
Theocritus
Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon
Sophocles
Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
Plato