Theognis of Megara Quotes

The greatest treasure you can leave your children is a sense of modesty and the advice to follow virtuous persons.

Boy, you’re like a horse. Just now sated with seed, You’ve come back to my stable, Yearning for a good rider, fine meadow, An icy spring, shady groves.

Surfeit begets insolence, when prosperity comes to a bad man.

Not to be born at all would be the best thing for man.

When we are dead; rugs are no richer than a quick-thorn bed.

Rash, angry words, and spoken out of season, When passion has usurp’d the throne of reason, Have ruin’d many. Passion is unjust, And for an idle, transitory gust Of gratified revenge, dooms us to pay With long repentance at a later day.

Restrain thy mind, and let mildness ever attend thy tongue.

Bright youth passes swiftly as a thought.

Unless the gods deceive my mind , That man is forging fetters for himself.

To many men well-fitting doors are not set on their tongues.

Fairly examined, truly understood, No man is wholly bad, nor wholly good.

Ram, ass, and horse, my Kyrnos, we look overWith care, and seek good stock for good to cover;And yet the best men make no argument,But wed, for money, runts of poor descent.So too a woman will demean her stateAnd spurn the better for the richer mate.Money’s the cry. Good stock to bad is wedAnd bad to good, till all the world’s cross-bred.No wonder if the country’s breed declines-Mixed metal, Kyrnos, that but dimly shines.