To be free from evil thoughts is God’s best gift.
For the mighty, even to give away is grace.
Words are healers of the sick tempered.
Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.
Black smoke, the flickering sister of fire.
Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
Bronze is the mirror of form, wine of the heart.
Myriad laughter of the ocean waves.
Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time. These lines are from a section of doubtful or spurious fragments.
I pray for no more youth To perish before its prime; That Revenge and iron-heated War May fade with all that has gone before Into the night of time.
On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
A great ox stands on my tongue.
The misfortunes of mankind are of varied plumage.
For not many men, the proverb saith, can love a friend whom fortune prospereth unenvying.
Sweet is a grief well ended.
Old men are always young enough to learn with profit.
Pain lays not its touch upon a corpse.
It is the nature of mortals to kick a fallen man.
They who prosper take on airs of vanity.
No bribes. Nothing that passes under the roof of a temple Or under the roof of the mouth, can appease heaven’s anger Or deflect its aim.