Aphorisms

Greek

• An eagle's old age is worth a sparrow's youth.

  Greek proverb

The Delphic Maxims

Inscribed at the Temple of Apollo, Delphi

• Follow God (or the gods)
• Obey the law
• Worship the Gods
• Respect your parents
• Be overcome by justice
• Know what you have learned
• Perceive what you have heard
• Be (or Know) Yourself
• Intend to get married
• Know your opportunity
• Think as a mortal
• If you are a stranger, act like one
• Honor the hearth (or Hestia)
• Control yourself
• Help your friends
• Control anger
• Exercise prudence
• Honor providence
• Do not use an oath
• Love friendship
• Cling to discipline (or education)
• Pursue honor
• Long for wisdom
• Praise the good
• Find fault with no one
• Praise virtue
• Practice what is just
• Be kind to friends
• Watch out for your enemies
• Exercise nobility of character
• Shun evil
• Be impartial (or sociable)
• Guard what is yours
• Shun what belongs to others
• Listen to everyone
• Be (religiously) silent
• Do a favor for a friend
• Nothing to excess
• Use time sparingly
• Foresee the future
• Despise insolence
• Have respect for suppliants
• Be accommodating in everything
• Educate your sons
• Give what you have
• Fear deceit
• Speak well of everyone
• Be a seeker of wisdom
• Choose what is divine
• Act when you know
• Shun murder
• Pray for things possible
• Consult the wise
• Test the character
• Give back what you have received
• Look down on no one
• Use your skill
• Do what you mean to do
• Honor a benefaction
• Be jealous of no one
• Be on your guard
• Praise hope
• Despise a slanderer
• Gain possessions justly
• Honor good men
• Know the judge
• Master wedding-feasts (or control marriages)
• Recognize fortune
• Flee a pledge
• Speak plainly
• Associate with your peers
• Govern your expenses
• Be happy with what you have
• Revere a sense of shame
• Fulfill a favor
• Pray for happiness
• Be fond of fortune
• Observe what you have heard
• Work for what you can own
• Despise strife
• Detest disgrace
• Restrain the tongue
• Keep yourself from insolence
• Make just judgments
• Use what you have
• Judge incorruptibly
• Accuse one who is present
• Tell when you know
• Do not depend on strength
• Live without sorrow
• Live together meekly
• Finish the race without shrinking back
• Deal kindly with everyone
• Do not curse your sons
• Rule your wife
• Benefit yourself
• Be courteous
• Give a timely response
• Struggle with glory
• Act without repenting
• Repent of sins
• Control the eye
• Give timely counsel
• Act quickly
• Guard friendship
• Be grateful
• Pursue harmony
• Keep deeply the top secret
• Fear ruling
• Pursue what is profitable
• Accept due measure
• Do away with enmities
• Accept old age
• Do not boast in might
• Exercise (religious) silence
• Flee enmity
• Acquire wealth justly
• Do not abandon honor
• Despise evil
• Venture into danger prudently
• Do not tire of learning
• Do not stop being thrifty
• Admire oracles
• Love whom you rear
• Do not oppose someone absent
• Respect the elder
• Teach a youngster
• Do not trust wealth
• Respect yourself
• Do not begin to be insolent
• Crown your ancestors
• Die for your country
• Do not be discontented by life
• Do not make fun of the dead
• Share the load of the unfortunate
• Gratify without harming
• Grieve for no one (or not over everything)
• Beget from noble roots
• Make promises to no one
• Do not wrong the dead
• Be well off as a mortal
• Do not trust fortune
• As a child, be well-behaved
• As a youth, be self-disciplined
• As of middle-age, be just
• As an old man, be sensible
• On reaching the end, without sorrow

Know Thyself.

Latin

• Man is to a man either a God or a Wolf.

  Desiderius Erasmus

Germanic

• How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• When a man is old he must do more than when he was young.

Modern

• The commonest and gravest error of modernity lies in believing that antiquity is dead.

  Clark Ashton Smith

• Paradoxes reveal the natural perversity of Truth.

• Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

  Benjamin Disraeli

• The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.

  William James

• We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.

  William James

• To change one's life: start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions.

  William James

• The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

  William James

Personal

• A face is only the part of you that has agreed to be recognized.