Quotes by Greek Authors - Page 22

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates
The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” ― Plato, Plato's Republic
Plato
When you're dead, you're dead, and that's that.
Costas Taktsis
Gradually, I began to understand that it does not matter very much what problem, whether big or small, is tormenting us; the only thing that matters is that we be tormented. In other words, that we exercise our minds in order to keep certainty from turning us into idiots, that we fight to open every closed door we find in front of us. (Report to Greco)
N. Kazantzakis
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
Epictetus
When any person harms you, or speaks badly of you, remember that he acts or speaks from a supposition of its being his duty. Now, it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from a wrong appearance, he is the person hurt, since he too is the person deceived. For if anyone should suppose a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but he who is deceived about it. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, "It seemed so to him."....
Epictetus
There's nothing like the sight of an old enemy down on his luck.
Euripides
Silence is better than unmeaning words.
Pythagoras
You, you insolent brazen bitch—you really dare to shake that monstrous spear in Father’s face?
Homer
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
The same man cannot be skilled in everything each has his special excellence.
Euripides
If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.
Pythagoras
I felt sorry for the inhabitants and went into the forest to admonish the wolf in God's name not to eat any more sheep. I called him, he came—and do you know what his answer was? 'Francis, Francis,' he said, 'do not destroy God's prescribed order. The sheep feeds on grass, the wolf on sheep—that's the way God ordained it. Do not ask why; simply obey God's will and leave me free to enter the sheepfolds whenever I feel the pinch of hunger. I say my prayers just like Your Holiness. I say: "Our Father who reignest in the forests and hast commanded me to eat meat, Thy will be done. Give me this day my daily sheep so that my stomach may be filled, and I shall glorify Thy name. Great art Thou, Lord, who hast created mutton so delicious. And when the day cometh that I shall die, Grant, Lord, that I may be resurrected, and that with me may be resurrected all the sheep I have eaten—so that I may eat them again!"' That, Brother Leo, is what the wolf answered me.
Nikos Kazantzakis
One learns by doing the thing for though you think you know it you have no certainty until you try.
Sophocles
It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
Isocrates
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
We have little power to choose what happens, but we have complete power over how we respond.
Arianna Huffington
This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past.
Agathon
Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
Epictetus
He knew how to say many false things that were like true sayings.
Homer
TEIRESIAS:I tell you, king, this man, this murderer(whom you have long declared you are in search of,indicting him in threatening proclamationas murderer of Laius)- he is here.In name he is a stranger among citizensbut soon he will be shown to be a citizentrue native Theban, and he'll have no joyof the discovery: blindness for sightand beggary for riches his exchange,he shall go journeying to a foreign countrytapping his way before him with a stick.He shall be proved father and brother bothto his own children in his house; to herthat gave him birth, a son and husband both;a fellow sower in his father's bedwith that same father that he murdered.Go within, reckon that out, and if you find memistaken, say I have no skill in prophecy.
Sophocles
Anyway, those things would not have lasted long.The experience of the years shows it to me.But Destiny arrived in some haste and stopped them.The beautiful life was brief.But how potent were the perfumes,On how splendid a bed we lay,To what sensual delight we gave our bodies.An echo of the days of pleasure,An echo of the days drew near me,A little of the fire of the youth of both of us,Again I took in my hands a letter,And I read and reread till the light was gone.And melancholy, I came out on the balconyCame out to change my thoughts at least by looking atA little of the city that I loved,A little movement on the street and in the
Constantinos P. Cavafis
Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest.
Plato
If you do not expect it you will not find the unexpected for it is hard to find and difficult.
Heraclitus
I have pondered on the causes of a life's shipwreck. I think that our lives are worse than the mind's quality would warrant. There are many who know virtue. We know the good, we apprehend it clearly. But we can't bring it to achievement.
Euripides
To make an action honorable, it ought to be agreeable to the age, and other circumstances of the person; since it is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
Plutarch
No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
Socrates
It is always in season for old men to learn.
Aeschylus
Who knoweth if to die be but to live, and that called life by mortals be but death?
Euripides
Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle, the philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of persuasiveness"; and the absence of this in the character of Marcius made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those whom they benifited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which Alcibiades, on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way most agreeable to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were attended with the most exuberant favour and honour; his very errors, at time, being accompanied by something of grace and felicity. And so in spite of great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he was repeatedly appointed to office and command; while Coriolanus stood in vain for a place which his great services had made his due. The one, in spite of the harm he occasioned, could not make himself hated, nor the other, with all the admiration he attracted, succeed in being beloved by his countrymen.
Plutarch
The touched heart madly stirs,your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles - every gesture is a proclamation,every sound is speech...
Sappho
Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.
Plato
Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.
Diogenes Laërtius
Since we are mortal friendships are best kept to a moderate level rather than sharing the very depths of our souls.
Hippolytus
Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
Georges Gurdjieff
The poet or the story-teller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker.
Lafcadio Hearn
With chilling care, my hardshipshave managed to implant a spiritof recklessness within me,one that impels me to point out injustice and wrongdoing.So, while many strive to have a toil free life, I spend my time criticizing tyrants,and so the spirit of subversion was quickly established within me. Now all I can do is calmly wait for cold death to seize me.
Alcaeus of Mytilene
Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other.
Homer
Who can stop grief's avalanche once it starts to roll.
Euripides
Prayer is an all-efficient panoply a treasure undiminished a mine which is never exhausted a sky unobscured by clouds a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root the fountain the mother of a thousand blessings.
Saint John Chrysostom
Let my heart be wise. It is the gods' best gift.
Euripides
Speak to me of love said St Francis to the almond tree and the tree blossomed.
Nicholas Kazantzakis
The Jews were God's chosen people.
St. Chrysostom
One enjoys the good things more to the extent that one goes to them after having labored in advance, for labors are a sauce for good things
Xenphon Ephesius
Wisdom comes through suffering.Trouble, with its memories of pain,Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,So men against their willLearn to practice moderation.Favours come to us from gods.
Aeschylus
The coward despairs.
Euripides
I cannot see you anymore. Your ego spans higher than the Himalayas.” Sutara
Eleni Papanou
Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Plato
The knowledge of the soul is knowledge of the universe
Alexis Karpouzos
How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?
Socrates
God loves to help him who strives to help himself.
Aeschylus
The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power - otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to a skill, they would know how to speak about every other topic too.
Plato
You win the victory when you yield to friends.
Sophocles
He's only harming himself who's bent upon harming another
Hesiod
We are not troubled by things but by the opinion which we have of things.
Epictetus
I know that our world is going through a very difficult time right now, but I will never lose my faith in humanity, and our incredible ability to overcome just about anything.
Yanni
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
Aeschylus
Contemporary writers annoyed him, he found their worlds insular, their style too self-conscious and ironic. Theirs was not a literature that belonged to him.
Christos Tsiolkas
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not but rejoices in what he has.
Epictetus
Everything in excess Is opposed by nature.
Hippocrates