The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Heraclitus12 quotes
One cannot step twice into the same river, for the waters are continually flowing on. — HeraclitusA man's character is his fate. — HeraclitusDonkeys would prefer refuse to gold. — HeraclitusIt would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. — HeraclitusWar is father of all and king of all. Some he reveals as gods, other as men; some he makes slaves, other free. — HeraclitusIt is not better for men to get everything they want. Disease makes health pleasant and good, as hunger does being full, and weariness rest. — HeraclitusAll 12 quotes →Menander5 quotes
This is living, not to live unto oneself alone. — Menander · 290 BCI call a fig a fig, a spade a spade. — Menander · 290 BCWhom the gods love dies young. — Menander · 290 BCMarriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil. — Menander · 290 BCThe man who has never been flogged has never been taught. — Menander · 291 BCPythagoras3 quotes
Friends share all things. — PythagorasIn anger we should refrain from both speech and action. — PythagorasThe soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone. — PythagorasThales2 quotes
Know thyself. — ThalesTime is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light. — ThalesXenophanes2 quotes
If cows and horses or lions had hands, or could draw with their hands and make things as men can, horses would have drawn horse-like gods, cows cow-like gods, and each species would have made the gods' bodies just like their own. — XenophanesThe gods did not intimate all things to men straight away, but in time, through seeking, their discoveries improve. — XenophanesAeschylus1 quote
Bronze is a mirror of the face, wine of the mind. — AeschylusDemocritus1 quote
The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not. — Democritus · 370 BC