Great Apopthegmata: Ancient Greek edition

[Kyriakos]

This is just a great quotes thread, but only for quotes from the ancient Greek world

Here are some:

1)Ποταμώ ουκ έστιν εμβήναι δις τω αυτώ
(You cannot enter the same river twice)
Heraklitos of Ephesos.

Meaning that the river is always in flow, so it is changed since you last entered it, and the river is a metaphor for other things too.

2)το λακωνίζειν εστί φιλοσοφείν
(being laconic is being philosophical)
Chilon of Sparta- one of the "7 sages of Greece" of antiquity

3)Ω ξειν, αγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ότι τήδε κείμεθα τοις κείνων ρήμασι πειθόμενοι
(Stranger, tell the Spartans that we lie here, obedient to their requests)
Epigram in Thermopylai, honoring the dead 300 Spartans.

4)Ελλήνων προμαχούντες Αθηναίοι Μαραθώνι, χρυσοφόρων Μήδων εστόρεσαν δύναμιν
(Fighting in the forefront of the Hellenes, the Athenians at Marathon destroyed the power of the gold-bearing Medes)
Epigram in Marathon, honoring the Athenians who fought there.

5)1)βῆ δ᾿ ἀκέων παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσϐοιο θαλάσσης·
(he walked silently on the edge of the loudly heard wave-breaking sea)
Iliad A:34

Such a beautiful phrase from the first rapsody of the Iliad

You can post your own favorite ancient Greek quotes. You don't have to include the original Greek, just be sure it is a translation of such a quote from antiquity.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

These are some of the maxims, 147 in total, which were inscribed in the frontal columns at the temple of the god Apollo, at the Oracle of Delphi:

8. Know yourself.
14. Control yourself.
38. Nothing in excess.
47. Praise everyone.
68. Believe in good luck.
106. Be grateful.
132. Die for your country.
143. As a child, be well behaved.
144. As a teenager, control yourself.
145. As middle-age, be just.
146. As an old man, be sensible.
147. On reaching the end, be without sorrow.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

“Let him that would move the world first move himself.”
Socrates

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Plato

“Nothing endures but change.”
Heraclitus

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
Epictetus

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
Aristotle

“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”
Aesop

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

 

[Kyriakos]

Δος μοι πα στω και ταν γαν κινάσω
(Give me somewhere to stand upon and i shall move the earth)
Archimedes of Syracusae

The following phrase was supposed to be his last words, when the romans entered Syracuse and a Roman soldier approached Archimedes, who was continuing his calculations:

Μη μου τους κύκλους τάραττε
(Do not disturb my circles)

His tomb was said to be adorned by a sphere inside a cylinder, due to his mathematical proof that the sphere amounts to two thirds of the volume of the circumscribing cylinder.