Quotes · Skopia

271 quotes

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. — Socrates · 400 BC The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates · 399 BC The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. — Socrates · 375 BC Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BC For our discussion is about no ordinary matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives. — Socrates · 375 BC I know that I do not know. — Socrates · 399 BC All 44 quotes →

Homer43 quotes

All men have need of the Gods. — Homer · 700 BC Zeus does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment. — Homer · 700 BC Among all men on Earth, bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the Muse has taught them songs, and loves the race of bards. — Homer · 700 BC Of all the creatures that breathe and move across the earth, there is nothing feebler than man. — Homer · 700 BC I should rather labor as another's serf, in the home of a man without fortune, one whose livelihood was meager, than rule over all the departed dead. — Homer · 700 BC Bad herdsmen ruin their flocks. — Homer · 700 BC All 43 quotes →

Aristotle42 quotes

All men by nature desire to know. — Aristotle · 322 BC Man is by nature a political animal. — Aristotle · 350 BC Hope is a waking dream. — Aristotle · 240 No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BC One soul dwelling in two bodies. — Aristotle One swallow does not make a spring. — Aristotle · 322 BC All 42 quotes →

Sophocles21 quotes

There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man. — Sophocles · 441 BC For God hates utterly The bray of bragging tongues. — Sophocles · 442 BC Reason is God's crowning gift to man. — Sophocles · 442 BC How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be When there's no help in truth! — Sophocles · 430 BC The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. — Sophocles · 430 BC The happiest life consists in ignorance. — Sophocles · 442 BC All 21 quotes →

Aeschylus13 quotes

For he does not wish to appear the bravest, but to be the bravest. — Aeschylus · 467 BC For few there are among men in whom it is inborn to admire without envy a friend's good fortune. — Aeschylus · 458 BC Zeus, author of all, worker of all! For what is brought to pass for mortal men save by will of Zeus? What herein is not wrought of god? — Aeschylus · 458 BC Bronze is a mirror of the face, wine of the mind. — Aeschylus Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. — Aeschylus · 458 BC Neither anarchy nor tyranny—this I counsel my citizens to support and respect, and not to drive fear wholly out of the city. For who among mortals, if he fears nothing, is righteous? — Aeschylus · 458 BC All 13 quotes →

Euripides12 quotes

Mere cleverness is not wisdom. — Euripides · 405 BC Leave no stone unturned. — Euripides · 430 BC My tongue swore, but my mind's unsworn. — Euripides · 428 BC There is one thing alone that stands the brunt of life throughout its course: a quiet conscience. — Euripides · 428 BC Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart of those he would destroy. I pray that love may never come to me with murderous intent, in rhythms measureless and wild. Not fire nor stars have stronger bolts than those of Aphrodite sent by the hand of Eros, Zeus' child. — Euripides · 428 BC Never shall I say that marriage brings more joy than pain. — Euripides · 438 BC All 12 quotes →

Pericles10 quotes

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth is to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. — Pericles · 430 BC Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. — Pericles · 430 BC But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BC Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all memorials, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the memorial of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. — Pericles · 430 BC All 10 quotes →

Plutarch10 quotes

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. — Plutarch When the candles are out all women are fair. — Plutarch · 100 It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad. — Plutarch · 119 This gives a great field for the flatterer in friendship, who finds a wonderful base of operations in our self-love, which makes each person his own first and greatest flatterer. — Plutarch · 100 A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful? Holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me." — Plutarch · 119 He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach. — Plutarch All 10 quotes →

Aristophanes6 quotes

The old are in a second childhood. — Aristophanes · 423 BC Mankind, fleet of life, like tree leaves, weak creatures of clay, unsubstantial as shadows, wingless, ephemeral, wretched, mortal and dreamlike. — Aristophanes · 424 BC These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can't live with them, or without them! — Aristophanes · 411 BC When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever. — Aristophanes · 424 BC A woman's time of opportunity is short, and if she doesn't seize it, no one wants to marry her, and she sits watching for omens. — Aristophanes · 414 BC You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding and a vulgar manner. — Aristophanes · 424 BC

Hippocrates6 quotes

As to diseases make a habit of two things-to help, or at least, to do no harm. — Hippocrates · 370 BC There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. — Hippocrates · 370 BC For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable. — Hippocrates · 370 BC Prayer is indeed good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand. — Hippocrates · 370 BC The life so short, the craft so long to learn. — Hippocrates · 410 BC It is well to superintend the sick to make them well, to care for the healthy to keep them well, also to care for one's own self, so as to observe what it seemly. — Hippocrates · 370 BC

Pindar6 quotes

It is not possible with mortal mind to search out the purposes of the gods. — Pindar · 438 BC Creatures of a day. What is someone? What is no one? Man is the dream of a shadow. But when the brilliance given by Zeus comes, a shining light is on man, and a gentle lifetime. — Pindar · 446 BC Words have a longer life than deeds. — Pindar · 473 BC Now I live in hope, but the end is in the hands of gods. — Pindar · 464 BC If any man hopes to do a deed without God's knowledge, he errs. — Pindar · 476 BC Do not crave immortal life, my soul, but use to the full the resources of what is possible. — Pindar · 474 BC

Plato6 quotes

For what should a man live, if not for the pleasures of discourse? — Plato · 370 BC Friends have all things in common. — Plato · 370 BC Of all wild creatures, the child is the most intractable. — Plato · 346 BC Socrates is a wrongdoer because he corrupts the youth and does not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings. — Plato · 339 BC My child, you are still young, and time as it advances [888b] will cause you to reverse many of the opinions you now hold: so wait till then before pronouncing judgment on matters of most grave importance; and of these the gravest of all—though at present you regard it as naught—is the question of holding a right view about the gods and so living well, or the opposite. — Plato · 346 BC You cannot conceive the many without the one. — Plato · 340 BC

Menander5 quotes

This is living, not to live unto oneself alone. — Menander · 290 BC I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade. — Menander · 290 BC Whom the gods love dies young. — Menander · 290 BC Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil. — Menander · 290 BC The man who has never been flogged has never been taught. — Menander · 291 BC

Thucydides5 quotes

You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. — Thucydides · 404 BC Great is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame. — Thucydides · 404 BC The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest. — Thucydides · 404 BC The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays. — Thucydides · 404 BC

Epicurus4 quotes

Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are death is not come, and when death is come, we are not. — Epicurus · 240 Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. — Epicurus · 240 Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship. — Epicurus · 240 It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well and justly without living pleasurably. — Epicurus · 240

Theognis of Megara4 quotes

Wine is wont to show the mind of a man. — Theognis of Megara · 485 BC Bright youth passes swiftly as a thought. — Theognis of Megara · 541 BC Adopt the character of the twisting octopus, which takes on the appearance of the nearby rock. Now follow in this direction, now turn a different hue. — Theognis of Megara · 541 BC The best of all things for earthly men is not to be born and not to see the beams of the bright sun; but if born, then as quickly as possible to pass the gates of Hades, and to lie deep buried. — Theognis of Megara · 545 BC

Agathon3 quotes

For the one thing even God cannot do is change the past. — Agathon This only is denied even to God, The power to make what has been done undone. — Agathon · 350 BC One might perhaps say that this very thing is probable, that many things happen to men that are not probable. — Agathon

Democritus3 quotes

In truth we know nothing, for truth lies in the depth. — Democritus · 240 The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not. — Democritus · 370 BC Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate. — Democritus · 415 BC

Nikos Kazantzakis3 quotes

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart. — Nikos Kazantzakis · 1946 "Life is trouble," Zorba continued. "Death, no. To Live-do you know what that means? To undo your belt and look for trouble!" — Nikos Kazantzakis · 1946 The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe! — Nikos Kazantzakis · 1946

Polybius3 quotes

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible, as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man. — Polybius · 118 BC Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. — Polybius · 117 BC From this point onwards history becomes an organic whole: the affairs of Italy and Africa are connected with those of Asia and of Greece, and all events bear a relationship and contribute to a single end. — Polybius · 117 BC

Pythagoras3 quotes

Friends share all things. — Pythagoras In anger we should refrain from both speech and action. — Pythagoras The 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. — Pythagoras

Demosthenes2 quotes

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. — Demosthenes · 349 BC Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states. — Demosthenes · 343 BC

Nicias2 quotes

For a city consists of men, and not of walls nor ships empty of men. — Nicias · 404 BC Who has knowledge of what is to be dreaded and what is not—the man whom I call courageous? — Nicias · 380 BC

Sappho2 quotes

Some say cavalry and others claim infantry or a fleet of long oars is the supreme sight on the black earth. I say it is the one you love. — Sappho · 570 BC The stars about the lovely moon hide their shining forms when it lights up the earth at its fullest. — Sappho · 570 BC

Solon2 quotes

Old to grow, but ever learning. — Solon · 119 Many evil men are rich, and good men poor, But we shall not exchange with them our excellence for riches. — Solon · 560 BC

Themistocles2 quotes

Tuning the lyre and handling the harp are no accomplishments of mine, but rather taking in hand a city that was small and inglorious and making it glorious and great. — Themistocles · 119 He who commands the sea has command of everything. — Themistocles · 462 BC

Aesop1 quote

Then one day there really was a wolf but when the boy shouted, they didn't believe him. — Aesop

Archilochus1 quote

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. — Archilochus · 600 BC

Chilon1 quote

Do not speak ill of the dead. — Chilon · 240

Diogenes Laertius1 quote

There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law. — Diogenes Laertius · 240

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