Famous quotes from Greek philosophers
- How many things I can do without! (on looking at a multitude of wares exposed for sale)
Socrates 469-399 BC
- Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Aristotle 384-322 BC
- A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. Aristotle 384-322 BC
- Is that which is holy loved by gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods? Plato 429-347 BC
- And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge holding such things to be holy secrets. Hippocrates c.460 - 357 BC
- Go, tell the Spartans, tho who passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie.(epitaph for the Spartans who died at Thermopylae Simonides c.556-468BC
- By convention there is colour, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space. Democritus c.460-c.370 BC
- Someone asked Sophocles, "How is your sex-life now? Are you still able to have a woman?" He replied, "Hush, man; most gladly indeed am I rid of it all, as though I had escaped from a mad and savage master" Sophocles c.496-406 BC
- Silence is a woman's finest ornament. Auctoritates Aristotelis
- The road up and the road down are one and the same. Heraclitus c.540-480 BC
- He who is able to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. Aristotle 384-322 BC
- What worse change can any one bring against an orator than that his words and his sentiments do not tally? Demosthenes c.384-c.322BC
- When asked what was first in oratory, (he) replied to his questioner, 'action' what second, 'action' and again third, 'action' Demosthenes c.384-c.322BC
- Have patience, heart. Once you endured worse than this. Homer, The Odyssey
- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. Aeschylus c.525-456 BC
- Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth. Archimedes c.287-212 BC
- Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude...by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions. Aristotle 384-322 BC
- Something sweet is the whisper of the pine, O goatherd, that makes her music by yonder springs. Theocritus c. 300-260 BC
- Is it not worthy of tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we haven't become yet lords of a single one?(when asked why he wept on hearing from Anaxarchus that there was as infinite number of worlds) Alexander the Great 356-323 BC
- We make war that we may live in peace. Aristotle 384-322 BC
- One more such victory and we are lost.(on defeating the Romans at Asculum, 279 BC Pyrrhus 319-272 BC
- The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men. Pericles c.495-429 BC
- Men say of us that we live a life free from danger at home while they fight wars. How wrong they are! I would rather stand three times in the battle line than bear one child. Euripides c.485-c.406 BC
- Whom the gods love dies young.
Menander 342-c.292 BC
