The Athenians, Spartans, and Romans were remarkable in so many ways. Certainly, one way in which these societies excelled is in writing down laws, establishing and testing the limits of democracy and other forms of government, and in oration/theater/philosophy. We have myriad ancient Greek quotes, Roman proverbs, writings, meditations, insights, and bits of wisdom that survived the ages. This is saying a lot because much has been lost or destroyed in the last 2,000 years. It is a rich cultural heritage that Athens bestowed, and there is much of interest in the Spartan and Roman civilizations as well. Add in Macedonians like Alexander and Aristotle, and you have a very valuable vein of knowledge, discovery, and even proto-science. Below you will find a beautiful array of ancient Greek quotes (and Roman, too) on all manner of subject, including philosophy, personal growth, wisdom, politics, glory, courage, and strength.
Here is a stanza from a superb Sting song, All This Time, that highlights how time has worn away some of the glory, greatness, and growth of ancient civilizations, but not all. In fact, the subject of Western civilization draws a meandering but unbroken line between the ancient Greeks and modern societies. It’s amazing, in a way.
The Romans built this place;
They built a wall and a temple on the edge of the Empire garrison town.
They lived and they died, They prayed to their gods,
But the stone gods did not make a sound.
And their empire crumbled Till all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found…
“Pallas Athena spreads her hands o’er our city/ But, by money seduced, the Athenians themselves/ Seek mindlessly to corrupt the great city/ Joined by the iniquitous schemes of their leaders,/ Who from arrogance great woes shall suffer:…” ~ Solon
”The most completely lost of all days is that on which one has not laughed.” ~ Catullus
“The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish be thought to be.” ~ Socrates
“For this is a mark of a wise and upright man: not to rail against the gods in misfortune.” ~ Aeschylus
“I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man.” ~ Themistocles
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” ~ Epictetus
“Does what is praised become better? Does an emerald become worse if it is not praised?” ~ Marcus Aurelius
“Glory is excess is fraught with peril; the lofty peak is struck by Zeus’ thunderbolt.” ~ Aeschylus
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” ~ Pericles
“Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.” ~ Solon
“Through every generation of the human race, there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.” ~ Alexander
“Out of life, comes death; and out of death, life. Out of the young, the old; and out of the old, the young. Out of waking, sleep; and out of sleep, waking. The stream of creation and dissolution never stops.” ~ Heraclitus
“I have no way of knowing either that the gods exist or that they do not exist, for there are many things that hinder such knowledge – both the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life.”
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.” ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“The old age of an eagle is better than the youth of a sparrow.” ~ Greek proverb (not exactly ancient Greek quotes, but just as good!)
“All of a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils….” ~ Sophocles
“Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.” ~ Aesop
“Justice is the firm and continuous desire to render to everyone that which is his due.” ~ Justinian
“The noblest motive is the public good.” ~ Virgil
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!” ~ Pericles
“Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.” ~ Herodotus
“You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along.” ~ Aristophanes
“The fool learns by suffering.” ~ Hesiod
“What can give us surer knowledge than our senses? With what else can we better distinguish the true and the false?” ~ Lucretius
“The search for truth is in one way hard and in another way easy, for it is evident that no one can master it fully or miss it wholly.” ~ Aristotle
“Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.” ~ Cato the Elder
“Only one principle will give you courage, that is the principle that no evil lasts forever nor indeed for very long.” ~ Epicurus
“All wish to know, but none to pay the fee.”
“If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger.” ~ Cornelius Tacitus
“Refrain from wrongdoing not from fear, but from duty.” ~ Democritus
“Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.” ~ Horace
“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.” ~ Socrates
“Probabilities guide the decisions of the wise.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” ~ Plutarch
“Hypatia was born, reared, and educated in Alexandria. Since she had greater genius than her father, she was not satisfied with his instruction in mathematical subjects; she also devoted herself diligently to all of philosophy. The woman used to put on her philosopher’s cloak and walk through the middle of town and publicly interpret Plato, Aristotle, or the works of any other philosopher to those who wished to hear her. In addition to her expertise in teaching she rose to the pinnacle of civic virtue.” ~ Damascius (though not exactly an example of ancient Greek quotes, this is a quote about a notable Greek woman, so I wanted to include it)
“There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies, against despots: distrust.” ~ Demosthenes
“Let us conduct ourselves so that all men wish to be our friends and all fear to be our enemies.” ~ Alexander
“Ruin comes when the trader, whose heart is lifted up by wealth, becomes ruler.” ~ Plato
“Man’s most valuable trait is a judicial sense of what not to believe.” ~ Euripides
“Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift.” ~ Homer
“Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority, but of the whole people.” ~ Pericles
“Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” ~ Ovid
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
“Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.” ~ Herodotus
“So much the better, we shall fight in the shade.” ~ Dienekes
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” ~ Greek proverb (not exactly ancient Greek quotes, but just as good!)
“Where am I to look for the good and the evil? Within me, in that which is my own.” ~ Epictetus
“Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.” ~ Tertullian
“Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.” ~ Virgil
“This my soul commands me teach the Athenians:/ A bad constitution brings civic turmoil, But a good one shows well-ordering and coherence,/ As it puts shackles ’round about wrong-doing, It smoothes out the rough; it checks greed, tempers hubris,/ And withers the fruits of reckless impulse./ It takes crooked judgments and makes them straight, Softens arrogant deeds, halts seditious acts,/ And ends the bile of grievous strife. And so under it, Everything for mankind becomes whole and wise.” ~ Solon
“Wisdom never lies.” ~ Homer
“Freedom is participation in power.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Lycurgus’ second task, and indeed the boldest he ever undertook, was the redistribution of the land. There was extreme inequality here, the city overburdened with poor and needy people, while all the wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few. To make an end of arrogance and envy, crime and luxury, and of the still older and more serious diseases of poverty and riches, he persuaded the citizens to put all their land together and divide it anew, and live together as equals in means of livelihood, striving to surpass each other only in virtue. Disgrace for evil-doing and credit for noble acts would be the one mark of distinction or inequality among them.” ~ Plutarch
Did you enjoy these ancient Greek quotes (and Roman ones, too)? Look up authors, subjects, keywords, values, and more on The Wisdom Archive, an awesome database of quotations on values, wisdom, ethics, and the like!
In this external link, you will find a few ancient Greek quotes, but also much historical information about culture, war, the gods, art, philosophy, democracy, and the like.
