"A prosperous fool is a grievous burden." - Aeschylus
"From him \[Death] alone of all the powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof." - Aeschylus
"To be rather than to seem." - Aeschylus, "Seven Against Thebes"
"It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath." - Aeschylus
"In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend." - Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound"
"Time as he grows old teaches all things." - Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound"
"Wisdom comes through suffering... Favours come to us from gods." - Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"
"She \[Helen] brought to Ilium her dowry, destruction." - Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"
"It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered." - Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"
"For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer." - Aeschylus
"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." - Aesop
"Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own." - Aesop
"Familiarity breeds contempt; acquaintance softens prejudices." - Aesop
"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance." - Aesop
"It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow." - Aesop
"It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds." - Aesop
"Never trust advice from a man in the throes of his own difficulty." - Aesop
"Persuasion is often more effectual than force." - Aesop
"Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction." - Aesop
"Slow and steady wins the race." - Aesop
"The gods help them that help themselves." - Aesop
"The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction." - Aesop
"Union gives strength." - Aesop, "The Bundle of Sticks"
"Enemies' promises were made to be broken." - Aesop
"Spartans do not ask how many, only where the enemy are." - Agis II of Sparta
"Weep not for me, suffering as I do unjustly, I am in a happier case than my murderers." - Agis IV, 24th Spartan king of the Eurypontid dynasty
"He who doeth good shall meet with good; and he who doeth evil shall meet with evil, for the Lord judgeth a man according to the measure of his work." - Ahiqar, Assyrian sage
"If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes." - Alexander the Great
"I do not steal victory." - Alexander the Great
"Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?" - Alexander the Great
"To the strongest!" - Alexander, on his death bed, when asked who should succeed him as king
"There is nothing impossible to him who will try" - Alexander the Great
"Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal." - Alexander the Great
"The agora is an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously." - Anacharsis
"Written laws are like spiders’ webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful." - Anacharsis
"The fox knows many tricks; the hedgehog one good one." - Archilochus
"States are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad." - Antisthenes
"Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes, on his usage of the lever.
"It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war." - Aristophanes
"Words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven." - Aristophanes
"It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender language of equal greatness." - Aristophanes
"Hunger knows no friend but its feeder." - Aristophanes
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies." - Aristotle
"Our characters are the result of our conduct." - Aristotle
"Man is by nature a political animal." - Aristotle
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost." - Aristotle
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." - Aristotle
"Wit is well-bred insolence." - Aristotle
"It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences." - Aristotle
"Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him." - Aristotle
"I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law." - Aristotle
"Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness." - Bias of Priene
"How stupid it was for the king to tear out his hair in grief, as if baldness were a cure for sorrow." - Bion of Borysthenes
"He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him." - Bion of Borysthenes
"Woe to the Defeated" - Brennus
"Thus always to tyrants." - Marcus Junius Brutus, after assassinating Gaius Julius Caesar
"Escape, yes, but this time with my hands, not my feet." - Marcus Junius Brutus, before committing suicide
"I came, I saw, I conquered." - Gaius Julius Caesar
"Men willingly believe what they wish." - Gaius Julius Caesar
"The die is cast." - Gaius Julius Caesar
"It is not the well-fed long-haired man I fear, but the pale and the hungry looking." - Gaius Julius Caesar
"Set a thief to catch a thief." - Callimachus
"Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise." - Cato the Elder
"Moreover, I consider that Carthage should be destroyed." - Cato the Elder
"All mankind rules its women, and we rule all mankind, but our women rule us." - Cato the Elder
"Be firm or mild as the occasion may require." - Cato the Elder
"The worst ruler is one who cannot rule himself." - Cato the Elder
"Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable." - Chanakya
"If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic." - Chanakya
"For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"O, the times, O, the customs!" - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"We are not born, we do not live for ourselves alone; our country, our friends, have a share in us." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"At my signal, unleash Hell." - Maximus Decimus Meridius
"Time heals all wounds." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!" - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Genius is fostered by energy." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"While there's life, there's hope." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Let the punishment match the offense." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Endless money forms the sinews of war." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Laws are silent in time of war." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons." - Croesus (Greek: Kroisos), king of Lydia
"I am Cyrus, king of the world..." - Cyrus the Great
"Diversity in counsel, unity in command." - Cyrus the Great
"Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones." - Epitaph of Cyrus the Great
"Success always calls for greater generosity — though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed." - Cyrus the Great
"Whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object." - Darius I
"Good breeding in cattle depends on physical health, but in men on a well-formed character." - Democritus
"If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth." - Democritus
"Delivery, delivery, delivery." - Demosthenes, when asked what were the three most important elements of rhetoric
"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery." - Demosthenes
"Small opportunities often presage great enterprises." - Demosthenes
"Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue." - Demosthenes
"Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine." - Diogenes of Sinope, when Alexander the Great found him sunbathing and asked if he could help in in any way
"I am a citizen of the world." - Diogenes of Sinope
"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours." - Diogenes of Sinope
"Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent." - Dionysius I of Syracuse
"Nothing has more strength than dire necessity." - Euripides
"A coward turns away, but a brave man's choice is danger." - Euripides
"Cowards do not count in battle; they are there, but not in it." - Euripides
"Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent." - Euripides
"If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out." - Hammurabi
"I have come not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome." - Hannibal Barca
"I will either find a way, or make one." - Hannibal Barca
"My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour." - Hannibal Barca
"Everything flows, nothing stands still." - Herakleitos
"Nothing endures but change." - Herakleitos
"You could not step twice into the same river." - Herakleitos
"Character is destiny." - Herakleitos
"Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances." - Herodotus
"The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs." - Herodotus
"This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power." - Herodotus
"In soft regions are born soft men." - Herodotus
"It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country." - Horace
"We are but dust and shadow." - Horace
"I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter." - Horace
"Conquered Greece took captive her savage conqueror and brought her arts into rustic Latium." - Horace
"Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation." - Isocrates
"I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." - Themistocles
"I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion." - Themistocles
"For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians; your mother commands me, and you command your mother." - Themistocles, in a statement to his son
"Strike, if you will, but listen." - Themistocles
"Marry a good man, and bear good children." - Leonidas, to his wife before he left for Thermopylae
"Come and get them!" - Leonidas, to the Persian messenger who demanded that he and his men lay down their arms
"For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home." - Zoroaster
"I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade." - Menander
"The man who runs may fight again." - Menander
"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
"Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it." - Pericles
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." - Pericles
"We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all." - Pericles
"They gave her their lives, to Her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers..." - Pericles, Funeral Oration
"Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous." - Pericles
"Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go." - Pericles
"If Athens shall appear great to you, consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty." - Pericles
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles
"War is sweet to those who have no experience of it, but the experienced man trembles exceedingly at heart on its approach." - Pindar
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows." - Plato
"Life without examination is not worth living." - Plato
"Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind." - Plato
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil." - Plato
"Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike." - Plato
"Death is not the worst that can happen to men." - Plato
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Unknown
"Our need will be the real creator." - Plato
"A man with courage has every blessing." - Plautus
"No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days." - Plautus
"He whom the gods love dies young." - Plautus
"Practice yourself what you preach." - Plautus
"Drink, live like the Greeks, eat, gorge." - Plautus
"Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!" - Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great)
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." - Protagoras
"We ought so to behave to one another as to avoid making enemies of our friends, and at the same time to make friends of our enemies." - Pythagoras
"In anger we should refrain both from speech and action." - Pythagoras
"Power is the near neighbor of necessity." - Pythagoras
"Numbers rule the Universe." - Pythagoras
"Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please." - Pythagoras
"Anger begins in folly, and ends in repentance." - Pythagoras
"There is no word or action but has its echo in Eternity." - Pythagoras
"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres." - Pythagoras
"Practice justice in word and deed, and do not get in the habit of acting thoughtlessly about anything." - Pythagoras
"Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done." - Pythagoras
"When the wise man opens his mouth, the beauties of his soul present themselves to the view, like the statues in a temple." - Pythagoras
"Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good." - Pythagoras
"Without Justice, no realm may prosper." - Pythagoras
"For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires." - Sallust
"I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances." - Scipio Africanus
"Prepare for war, since you have been unable to endure a peace." - Scipio Africanus
"Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by that here, obedient to their laws, we lie." - Simonides of Ceos, epitaph on the Cenotaph of Thermopylae
"Not even the gods fight against necessity." - Simonides of Ceos
"We did not flinch but gave our lives to save Greece when her fate hung on a razor's edge." - Simonides of Ceos
"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it." - Thucydides