The collection / 260 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

260 results · Page 1 of 11Play this collection ▷

01c. 720 BC

We know to tell many fictions like to truths, and we know, when we will, to speak what is true.

Hesiod / quote

02c. 720 BC

On the tongue of such an one they shed a honeyed dew, and from his lips drop gentle words.

Hesiod / quote

03c. 720 BC

Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death.

Hesiod / quote

04c. 720 BC

From whose eyelids also as they gazed dropped love.

Hesiod / quote

05c. 720 BC

Both potter is jealous of potter and craftsman of craftsman; and poor man has a grudge against poor man, and poet against poet.

Hesiod / quote

06c. 720 BC

Fools! they know not how much half exceeds the whole.

Hesiod / quote

07c. 720 BC

For full indeed is earth of woes, and full the sea; and in the day as well as night diseases unbidden haunt mankind, silently bearing ills to men, for all-wise Zeus hath taken from them their voice. So utterly impossible is it to escape the will of Zeus.

Hesiod / quote

08c. 720 BC

They died, as if o'ercome by sleep.

Hesiod / quote

09c. 720 BC

Oft hath even a whole city reaped the evil fruit of a bad man.

Hesiod / quote

10c. 720 BC

For himself doth a man work evil in working evils for another.

Hesiod / quote

11c. 720 BC

Badness, look you, you may choose easily in a heap: level is the path, and right near it dwells. But before Virtue the immortal gods have put the sweat of man's brow; and long and steep is the way to it, and rugged at the first.

Hesiod / quote

12c. 720 BC

This man, I say, is most perfect who shall have understood everything for himself, after having devised what may be best afterward and unto the end.

Hesiod / quote

13c. 720 BC

Let it please thee to keep in order a moderate-sized farm, that so thy garners may be full of fruits in their season.

Hesiod / quote

14c. 720 BC

Invite the man that loves thee to a feast, but let alone thine enemy.

Hesiod / quote

15c. 720 BC

A bad neighbour is as great a misfortune as a good one is a great blessing.

Hesiod / quote

16c. 720 BC

Gain not base gains; base gains are the same as losses.

Hesiod / quote

17c. 720 BC

If thou shouldst lay up even a little upon a little, and shouldst do this often, soon would even this become great.

Hesiod / quote

18c. 720 BC

At the beginning of the cask and at the end take thy fill, but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom saving comes too late. Let the price fixed with a friend be sufficient, and even dealing with a brother call in witnesses, but laughingly.

Hesiod / quote

19c. 720 BC

Diligence increaseth the fruit of toil. A dilatory man wrestles with losses.

Hesiod / quote

20c. 720 BC

The morn, look you, furthers a man on his road, and furthers him too in his work.

Hesiod / quote

21c. 720 BC

Observe moderation. In all, the fitting season is best.

Hesiod / quote

22c. 720 BC

Neither make thy friend equal to a brother; but if thou shalt have made him so, be not the first to do him wrong.

Hesiod / quote

23c. 530 BC

Wine is wont to show the mind of man.

Theognis / maxim

24c. 530 BC

No one goes to Hades with all his immense wealth.

Theognis / maxim