Hesiod Quotes

Do not gain basely; base gain is equal to ruin.

Bring a wife home to your house when you are of the right age, not far short of 30 years, nor much above; this is the right time for marriage.

If you should put even a little on a little and should do this often, soon this would become big.

It is not possible either to trick or escape the mind of Zeus.

Whoever, fleeing marriage and the sorrows that women cause, does not wish to wed comes to a deadly old age.

A day is sometimes our mother, sometimes our stepmother.

Acquisition means life to miserable mortals.

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.

It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.

Toil is no source of shame; idleness is shame.

How easily some light report is set about, but how difficult to bear.

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.

Mortals grow swiftly in misfortune.

Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and contrives presumptuous deeds.

When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.

Wealth should not be seized, but the god-given is much better.

A bad neighbor is as great a calamity as a good one is a great advantage.

Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the larger the load, the greater will be the profit upon profit.

The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.

Never make a companion equal to a brother.

So the people will pay the penalty for their kings‘ presumption, who, by devising evil, turn justice from her path with tortuous speech.

The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.

Giving is good, but taking is bad and brings death.

Whoever happens to give birth to mischievous children lives always with unending grief in his spirit and heart.

But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper.

We know how to speak many falsehoods that resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.

Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.

Whoever has trusted a woman has trusted deceivers.

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.

Justice prevails over transgression when she comes to the end of the race.

It will not always be summer; build barns.

He is senseless who would match himself against a stronger man; for he is deprived of victory and adds suffering to disgrace.

For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and then again nothing deadlier than a bad one.

Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and the poor have a grudge against the poor, and the poet against the poet.

Do not let a flattering woman coax and wheedle you and deceive you; she is after your barn.