Gorgo
When some woman accosted Leonidas' wife Gorgo and said, "You Lakonian women are the only ones who can rule men," she replied, "That is because we are the only ones who give birth to men."
Hecaton
I will reveal to you a love potion, without medicine, without herbs, without any witch's magic; if you want to be loved, then love.
Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.
Heraclitus
Everything flows and nothing stays.
Just as children seem foolish to adults, so humans seem foolish to the Gods.
It is not good for all your wishes to be fulfilled: through sickness you recognize the value of health, through evil the value of good, through hunger satisfaction, through exertion, the value of rest.
Heraclitus was asked by the citizens of Ephesus to become a law-maker. He refused, replying, "If I do so, who would play with the children in the temple?"
Hermes Trismegestus
To simply love God in thought with singleness of heart, and to follow the Goodness of his will - this is philosophy, unsullied by intrusive cravings for pointless opinions.
There are many kinds of Gods; some of them are aprehensible by thought alone, and others are perceptible by sense.
Without God nothing has been or is or will be; from God and in God and through God are all things: all the various and multiform qualities, the vast and measureless magnitudes, and the forms of every aspect.
O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing will remain but an empty tale, which thine own children will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words, and only the stones will tell of thy piety. And in that day men will be weary of life, and they will cease to think the universe worthy of revrant wonder and of worship. And so religion, the greatest of all blessings - for there is nothing, nor has been, nor ever shall be, that can be deemed a greater boon - will be threatened with destruction. Do you weep at this, Asclepius? There is worse to come.
The precepts: 1. What I say is not fictious but reliable and true. 2. What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that which is below. They work to accomplish the wonders of the One Thing. 3. As all things were created by the One Word of the One Being, so all things were created by the One Thing by adaptation. 4. Its Father is the Sun and its Mother the Moon. The Wind carries it in its belly. Its Nurse is the Earth. 5. It is the Father of Perfection in the whole world. 6. The power is strong if it is changed into Earth. 7. Separate Earth from Fire, the subtle from the coarse, but be prudent and circumspect as you do it. 8. Use your mind to its full extent and rise from Earth to Heaven, and then again descent to Earth and combine the powers of what is above and what is below. Thus you will win glory in the whole world, and obscurity will leave you at once. 9. This has more virtue in it than Virtue itself, because it controls every subtle thing and pentrates every solid thing. 10. This is the way the world was created. 11. This is the origins of the wonders that are here established. 12. This is why I am called "Thrice-Greatest Hermes", for I possess the three parts of the cosmic philosophy. 13. What I had to say about the Operation of the Sun is completed.
Herodotos
The Athenians' reply to the Spartans, about making a truce with the Persians: There are many important reasons which prevent us from doing this, even if we so wished, the first and greatest being the burning and demolishing of the statues and temples of the Gods, which we must avenge with all our power rather than making terms with the agent of their destruction. Furthermore there is the fact that we are all Greeks, sharing both the same blood and the same language, and we have the temples of our Gods in common and our sacrifices and similar life-style, and it would not be right for the Athenians to betray all these.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
You do not know what freedom is, for if you did you would fight for it with bare hands if you had no weapons.
A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her clothes.
The Persians are accustomed to deliberate about the most important matters while drunk.
It is better to be envied than pitied.
Force has no place where there is need of skill.
It is the Gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.
Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.In soft regions are born soft men.
This is the bitterest pain among men - to have much knowledge, but no power.
Hesiod
Work is no dishonor; idleness is.
Women are a bane to men who eat bread.
Trust and mistrust together have ruined men.
Do not let a woman who decorates her buttocks deceive you, by wily coaxing, for she is after your granary.
Whoever trusts a woman, trusts thieves.
Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.
A bad neighbor is a misfortune as much as a good one is a blessing.
Do not seek evil gains: evil gains are the equivalent of a disaster.
At the beginning of a cask, and at the end take your fill; in the middle be sparing.
Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.
Hippocrates
Life is short, the art long.
The Hitopadesa
Whether he who comes to thy house be of the highest or the the lowest rank, he is to be treated with respect: for of all men thy guest is the superior.
Homer
Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war.
The son of Kronos spoke, and nodded with his darkish brows, and immortal locks fell forward from the Lord's deathless head, and he made great Olympos tremble.
The eternal Gods do not lightly change their minds.
Like that of leaves is a generation of men.
Whoever obeys the Gods, to him they particularly listen.
A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king.
The glorious gifts of the Gods are not to be cast aside.
Not at all similar are the race of the immortal Gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth.
Attach a golden chain from heaven and all you take hold of it, you Gods and Goddesses, yet would you not be able to drag Zeus the Most High from heaven to earth.
To be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.
There is a strength in the union of even very sorry men.
You will certainly not be able to take the lead in all things yourself, for to one man a God has given deeds of war, and to another the dance, to another the lyre and song, and in another loud-thundering Zeus puts a good mind.
It is not possible to fight beyond your strength, even if you strive.
The Erinyes, who exact punishment of men underground, if one swears a false oath.
There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord.
For two jars stand on the floor of Zeus of the gifts which he gives, one of evils and the other of blessings.
For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers.
All strangers and beggars are from Zeus, and a gift, though small, is precious.
Evil deeds do not prsoper; the slow man catches up with the swift.
There is a time for many words, and a time for rest.
Bad herdsmen ruin their flocks.
Men flourish only for a moment.
Endure, my heart: you once endured something even more dreadful.
Always to be best, and to be distinguished above the rest.
Pray, for all men need the aid of the Gods.
Zeus gives no aid to liars.
Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
It lies in the laps of the Gods.
And they die an equal death - the idler and the man of mighty deeds.
Life and death are balanced on the edge of a razor.
I would rather be tied to the soil as another man's slave, even a poor man's, who hadn't much to live on himself, than be king of all the dead and destroyed.
Axylos, the son of Teutheronas, was a man of substance and dear to his fellow men, for his house was by the side of the road and he welcomed all who passed by.
Horace
Leave all else to the Gods.
Seize the day, put not trust in the morrow.
Grant me, sound of body and of mind, to pass old age lacking neither honor nor lyre.
A grudging and infrequent worshipper of the Gods.
Now is the time for drinking, now the time to beat the earth with unfettered feet.
In adversity remember to keep an even mind.
Whoever cultivates the Golden Mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
I shall not wholly die.
We are but dust and shadows.
It is sweet to let the mind unbind.
Copyright 2002 Sannion
All Rights Reserved
Posted with permission
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