Hesiod quotes - page 3

Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet, often considered one of the earliest and most influential figures in Western literature. His works, especially "Theogony" and "Works and Days", provided foundational myths and wisdom for Greek culture. He is remembered for shaping early Greek thought about the gods, human life, and the origins of the world. Here are 105 of his quotes:

A day is sometimes our mother, sometimes our stepmother.

Hesiod

Try to take for a mate a person of your own neighborhood.

Hesiod

That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.

Hesiod

Mortals grow swiftly in misfortune.

Hesiod

At the beginning of the cask and the end take thy fill but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom the savings comes too late.

Hesiod

For both faith and want of faith have destroyed men alike.

Hesiod

False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth.

Hesiod

A man who works evil against another works it really against himself, and bad advice is worst for the one who devised it.

Hesiod

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it.

Hesiod

From whose eyelids also as they gazed dropped love.

Hesiod

Neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men.

Hesiod

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

And she conceived and bore to Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus.

Hesiod

Work the work which the gods ordained for men, lest in bitter anguish of spirit you with your wife and children seek your livelihood amongst your neighbours, and they do not heed you.

Hesiod

They died, as if o'ercome by sleep.

Hesiod

Gossip is mischievous, light and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of. No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it too is a kind of divinity.

Hesiod

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

Hesiod

The fool knows after he's suffered.

Hesiod

There the sons of obscure Night hold their habitation, Sleep and Death, dread gods.

Hesiod

Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the greater the lading, the greater will be your piled gain, if only the winds will keep back their harmful gales.

Hesiod

The best treasure a man can have is a sparing tongue.

Hesiod

Bacteria: The only culture some people have.

Hesiod