Homer
before 700 BC
The greatest epic poet in the world.
|
Always to
be best, and to be distinguished above the rest.
It
is not good to have a rule of many.
The
difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend
worth dying for.
I
detest that man who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and
speaks for another.
|
Aesop
620
BC
The most famous inventor of fables.
|
Beauty of
the mind is superior to that of the body.
The gods
help those who help themselves.
Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real
thing.
|
Bias
of Priene
6th century BC
|
To desire
the impossible is a sickness of the mind
Provide
yourself with wisdom from youth to old age, because it is more lasting
possession than anything else.
|
Pittacus
648-569
BC
Political
figure.
|
Beware
of the unethical.
Power
reveals the man.
Do not
become rich unjustly.
|
Solon
of
Athens
640-558
BC
The
Law-Giver, poet,
legislator and philosopher.
|
Do not
advise the pleasant but the proper.
|
Sappho
640-548 BC
The most famous female lyric of the ancient Greek world and possibly the
first woman poet in the world.
|
A
handsome man is handsome so long as he stands before you, but a kind man
remains comely later and forever.
What is beautiful is good,
and who is good will soon be beautiful.
Beauty endures only for as
long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so
tomorrow.
|
Thales
of
Miletus
624-549 BC
Founder
of the Ionian school of philosophy.
|
Seek the
company of capable men.
Better to
be envied than pitied.
A multitude of words is no
proof of a prudent mind.
The past is cerain, the
future obscure.
Know thyself.
|
Pythagoras
of
Samos
570-500 BC
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian
Greek mathematician and founder of the religious movement called
Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician,
mystic and scientist.
|
Say
not little in many words, but much in few.
No man is
free who cannot master himself.
Strength of mind rests in
sobriety; for this keeps your reason unclouded by passion.
Rest satisfied with doing
well, and leave others to talk of you as they will.
Silence is better than
unmeaning words.
Wisdom thoroughly learned
will never be forgotten.
Truth is so great a
perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would
choose light for his body and truth for his soul.
Virtue is harmony.
|
Pindar
528-438 BC
The lyric poet.
|
Man gains
no happiness without labor.
Learn what you are and be
such.
A graceful and honorable old
age is the childhood of immortality.
Great deeds give choice of
many tales. Choose a slight tale, enrich it large, and then let wise men
listen.
|
Euripides
485-406 BC
Greek tragic dramatist, a prolific writer. Euripides
is known primarily for having reshaped the formal structure of
traditional Attic tragedy by showing strong female characters and
intelligent slaves, and by satirizing many heroes of Greek mythology.
|
Action
achieves more than words.
Necessity
teaches wisdom even to the stupid.
Talk sense to a
fool and he calls you foolish.
The wisest men
follow their own direction.
Question everything. Learn
something. Answer nothing.
|
Socrates
470-399 BC
One of the greatest thinker and philosopher of antiquity. Famous for his view of philosophy as a
pursuit proper and necessary to all intelligent men, he was one of the
great historical examples of a man who lived by his principles even
though they ultimately cost him his life.
|
I grow
old ever learning
Nobody is
willingly evil.
I know
nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
All men's
souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and
divine.
Employ
your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you
shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Our
prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is
good for us.
The only
true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Better do
a little than a great deal badly.
Keep a
healthy mind in a healthy body.
|
Democritus
470-360 BC
He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the
pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the
culmination of early Greek thought.
|
The world
is a stage, life is a passage you came, you saw, you left.
Victory
over self is the first and greatest victory.
Do not
trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the
latter a mark of prudence.
Happiness
resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the
soul.
If thou
suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it.
|
Hippocrates
460-370 BC
Physician, recognized as the father of medicine.
|
Life is
short, art is long.
Everything
in excess is opposed to nature.
If we
could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise,
not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to
health.
It is
more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know
what sort of disease a person has.
Natural
forces within us are the true healers of disease.
There are
in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge,
the later ignorance.
Whenever
a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
|
Thucydides
460-395 BC
|
We
acquire friend by doing good, not by having good done to us.
The
foundation of happiness is freedom that of freedom is courage.
|
Heraclitus
544-483 BC
Heraclitus is known for his doctrine of change being central to the
universe, and that the Logos is the fundamental order of all. Today, he
is famous for his influence on Friedrich Nietzsche by the idea of every
moment being its own; summarized in his famous quote, "You could
not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on
to you."
|
A man's
character is his fate.
Character
is destiny.
Eyes and
ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.
Opposition
brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.
The way
up and the way down are one and the same.
|
Aristophanes
446-386 BC
The greatest comic poet. His powers of
ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries
|
The wise
learn many things from their enemies.
It is
harder to conquer a woman than to subdue any wild beast.
We learn not in the school,
but in life.
Life is too important to be
taken seriously.”
Love is
simply the name for the desire and the pursuit of the whole.
|
Lysias
445-380 BC
Athenian orator and speechwriter.
|
I think
physical misfortunes can be cured satisfactorily by mental virtues.
People’s
view differs not with regards to the political system, but to their
personal interest.
|
Isocrates
436-338 BC
One of the Ten Attic Orators. A pupil of Socrates and of the Sophists. 
|
Be slow
to make friends, but having done so, strive to remain a friend.
Hate
flatterers precisely as you would hate crooks.
Of all our possessions,
wisdom alone is immortal.
Talking comes by nature,
silence by wisdom.
He who does not understand
your silence will probably not understand your words.
Fear is the thought of
admitted inferiority.
|
Plato
427-347 BC
was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of
philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first
institution of higher learning in the Western world. Plato was
originally a student of Socrates, and was as much influenced by his
thinking as by what he saw as his teacher's unjust death.
|
If I had
either to do wrong or to be done wrong, I would prefer ti have wrong
done to me.
If I
don’t know something, I don’t claim to know it.
And what,
Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food
of the soul.
Any man
may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.
Every
heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those
who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone
becomes a poet.
Good
actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Human
behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
|
Diogenes
412-323
BC
Diogenes of Sinope, also known as “The Cynic”, was a Greek
philosopher born in Sinope.
|
Dogs and
philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
He has
the most who is most content with the least.
I know
nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.
It takes
a wise man to discover a wise man.
Man is
the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.
|
Aristotle
384-322 BC
The greatest systematic philosopher of
antiquity, a student of Plato and
teacher of Alexander the Great.
|
All men
possess by nature the desire to know.
Pleasure
in the job puts perfection in the work.
The aim
of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their
inward significance.
Those
that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
|
Demosthenes
384-322 BC
Most famous orator in ancient
Greece.
|
A man
with sound judgment must always impose reason over desire.
It is
more difficult to keep good than acquire them.
Success
without value is an occasion for silly people to think badly.
|
Menander
342-290 BC
Poet and comedy writer.
|
The
middle road in all things is safest
A man’s
character shows in his discourse
Any man
who can blush has some honesty in him.
The mob
has great power but is not guided by the mind.
What we
deplore, we should not imitate.
|
Xenophon
430-355BC
Greek historian and essayist, philosopher and general.
|
Physical
strength grows old. Mental power, however, is ageless.
Labor is
the spice of wealth.
No life
passes without sorrow.
|
Epicurus
341-270 BC
Ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy
called Epicureanism. For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to
attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by "ataraxia",
peace and freedom from fear, and "aponia", the absence of pain,
and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught
that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that
death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be
feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe
is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately
based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
|
He, who
doesn’t find a little enough, will find nothing enough.
Death
does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And
when it does come, we no longer exist.
I have
never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve,
and what they approve I do not know.
Misfortune
seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests
are directed by reason throughout the course of life.
Not what
we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
The
misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.
You don't
develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You
develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
|
Theocritus
300-260 BC
Poet.
|
As long
as we live, we hope.
Poverty
is the mother of the arts.
|
Diphilus
300 BC
Poet of the New Comedy.
|
Time is a
doctor who heals all grieves.
|
Callimachus
265 BC
Poet and critic
|
To little
men the gods send little things.
|
Plutarch
46-125 AD
Great historian
|
Disturb
neither muddy waters, nor uneducated minds.
We should
not give power to an uneducated man.
Difficulties
are overcome with thoroughness.
|
Plotinus
205-270 AD
Neoplatonist philosopher. A native of Egypt, perhaps of Roman descent.
In the third century, Plotinus recast Plato's system, establishing
Neoplatonism , in which Middle Platonism was fused with oriental
mysticism.
|
A soul cannot see beauty if it is not beautiful
itself. So let every men first become divine and beautiful if he wants
to see god and his beauty.
|
| Annonymous |
I taught
you to dive, and now you wish to drown me.
Whatever
is good to know is difficult to learn.
The
tongue has no bones, yet it crushes bones.
Liars
and thieves are happy only the first year (after the deed).
In
the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
|
Books:
|
Prominent
Greeks of Antiquity
Papadogeorgos
Georgios
ISBN
960-540-465-6
|
| |
Greek
proverbs
Compiled
by Graham Smith
ISBN
9789607530936
www.papasotiriou.gr
www.appletree.ie
|
| |
|
Links
|
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greek_proverbs
www.worldofquotes.com/proverb/Arabic/1/
www.proz.com/topic/21105
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~gudehus/Quotations/
www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/CH15/CH15_1.HTM
www.proverbs.in/
http://www.ekivolos.gr/aristotelis.htm
http://aesopfables.com/
http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diogenes/index.htm
http://www.in2greece.com/english/index.htm
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/plato.html
http://thinkexist.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
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NELLY
MAZLOUM
