To the worker, God himself lends aid.
When love is in excess, it brings a man no honor, no worthiness.
A wise fellow who is also worthless always charms the rabble.
A rare spoil for a man Is the winning of a good wife; very Plentiful are the worthless women.
Wrath brings mortal men their gravest hurt.
In adverse hours the friendship of the good shines most; each prosperous day commands its friends.
Nothing's as good as holding on to safety.
Dishonor will not trouble me, once I am dead.
For no mortal ever attains to blessedness. One may be luckier than another when wealth flows his way, but blessed never.
The gift of a bad man can bring no good.
The brash unbridled tongue, the lawless folly of fools, will end in pain. But the life of wise content is blest with quietness, escapes the storm and keeps its house secure.
Love must not touch the marrow of the soul. Our affections must be breakable chains that we can cast them off or tighten them.
This is what it means to be a slave; to be abused and bear it; compelled by violence to suffer wrong.
A wise man in his house should find a wife gentle and courteous, or no wife at all.
The brave endure their labors, the cowardly are worth the cowards nothing at all.
I have found power in the mysteries of thought.
Longer Version:
I have found power in the mysteries of thought, exaltation in the changing of the Muses; I have been versed in the reasonings of men; but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.
The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind bravery if forethought.
In the hands of vicious men, a mob will do anything. But under good leaders it's quite a different story.
God helps him who strives hard.
For with slight efforts how should we obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire it.
To every man, even though he be a slave, the light of heaven is sweet.
A woman should be good for everything at home, but abroad good for nothing.
Let my heart be wise. It is the gods' best gift.
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?
We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing.
Dead men have no victory.
Silence and chaste reserve is woman's genuine praise, and to remain quiet within the house.
I sacrifice to no god save myself -- And to my belly, greatest of deities.
Prepare yourselves
for the roaring voice of the God of Joy!
Give me a man, for his sons make courageous soldiers while pretty boys can only decorate the dance.
Yet censure strikes hard at women, while men, the true agents of trouble, hear no reproach.
Evil men by their own nature cannot ever prosper.
There is no worse evil than a bad woman; and nothing has ever been produced better than a good one.
Who dares not speak his free thoughts is a slave.
I hate it in friends when they come too late to help.
The God knows when to smile.
Who can stop grief's avalanche once it starts to roll.
You gave birth to your own death.
Apollo, your voice hymned a justice I could not see clear, but all too clear the anguish you caused, the bloodhaunted, homeless future you've doled out.
We would have to think the gods had no minds, to pray for murderers.
The hounds snap fierce at your heels. Turn toward Athens. I hear them pelting hard on you, I see black flesh and snake-hands coiling round a fruit of agonizing pain.
Hurry, come hold me, though I am dead. Shed tears on my body as on my grave.
We'll buy back our own harm with what is most dear to us.
Again, again your mind has changed course with the wind. For you think now of godly things ignored when you worked dreadful deeds on your brother against his will.
No mortal ever knows happiness and good fortune all the way to the end. Each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him.
Of most dreadful suffering, I am the cause.
Yes, blood for blood, his bitter loan came due. He paid with death.
You don't know what your life is, nor what you're doing, nor who you are.
In childbirth grief begins.
Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart.
We pay a high price for intelligence. Wisdom hurts.
Remember this! No amount of Bacchic reveling can corrupt an honest woman.
My hands are clean, but my heart has somewhat of impurity.
You women are all the same, if bed's all right,
You think everything else can go to the wind.
But if there's any infringement of your bed-rights,
Then fair is foul and all hell's let loose.
Money is far more persuasive than logical arguments.
Mighty is geometry; joined with art, resistless.
The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.
Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?
No man,
is ever happy, no one.
O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good.
The mind of a queen
Is a thing to fear. A queen is used
To giving commands, not obeying them;
And her rage once roused is hard to appease.
Death is the only water to wash away this dirt.
My love for you
was greater than my wisdom.
What heavenly power lends an ear
To a breaker of oaths, a deceiver?
I'd three times sooner go to war than suffer childbirth once.
Alas, how right the ancient saying is: We, who are old, are nothing else but noise And shape. Like mimicries of dreams we go, And have no wits, although we think us wise.
What anger worse or slower to abate then lovers love when it turns to hate.
Friendship doubles your joys, and divides your sorrows.
He loves power. A terrible love.
Reason can wrestle and overthrow terror.
If I could remake the world, I'd banish women, send them away with all their trouble. Then children would come from a purer source.
There is safety in numbers.
The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.
Light be the earth upon you, lightly rest.
The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.
In this world second thoughts, it seems, are best.
Again, a smooth answer, signifying nothing.
The daughters of Sparta are never at home! They mingle with the young men in wrestling matches.
Sufficiency's enough for men of sense.
Worse than a true evil is it to bear the burden of faults that are not truly yours.
The fountains of sacred rivers flow upwards (i.e., everything is turned topsy turvy).
It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure, when two friends turn upon each other in hatred.
Do not mistake the rule of force for true power. Men are not shaped by force.
When two souls compose a single song, The muse fans Livid wrath before long.
I loathe a friend whose gratitude grows old, a friend who takes his friend's prosperity but will not voyage with him in his grief.
To a father waxing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons have spirits of a higher pitch, but less inclined to endearing fondness.
A second wife is hateful to the children of the first; A viper is not more hateful.
I think that fortune watcheth o'er our lives, surer than we. But well said: he who strives will find his goals strive for him equally.
Our ancestors... purged their guilt by banishment, not death. And by so doing, they stopped that endless vicious cycle of murder and revenge.
Death is what men want when the anguish of living is more than they can bear.
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
Vengeance comes not slowly either upon you or any other wicked man, but steals silently and imperceptibly, placing its foot on the bad.
Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.