We must not think too much: people go mad if they think too much.
I have pondered on the causes of a life’s shipwreck. I think that our lives are worse than the mind’s quality would warrant. There are many who know virtue. We know the good, we apprehend it clearly. But we can’t bring it to achievement.
Yes, I can endure guilt, however horrible; The laughter of my enemies I will not endure. Now.
What greater sorrow than being forced to leave behind my native earth?
No mortal ever knows happiness and good fortune all the way to the end. Each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him.
O gods, spare me the sight of this thankless breed, these politicians who cringe for favors from a screaming mob and do not care what harm they do their friends, providing they can please a crowd! Tell me, on what feeble grounds can you justify your vote of death?
If only the herdsman had not brought him up with the flocks, not reared him, Paris, Alexander, to watch his flock by the clear springs where the nymphs rise, and the rich pastures starred with roses and hyacinths for the goddesses to gather.
Again, again your mind has changed course with the wind. For you think now of godly things ignored when you worked dreadful deeds on your brother against his will.
It would have been better far for men To have got their children in some other way, and women Not to have existed. Then life would have been good. CHORUS.
Rashness in a leader causes failure; the sailor of a ship is calm, wise at the proper time. Yes, and forethought: this too is bravery.
Oh where is the noble face of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now that blasphemy is in power and men have put justice behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness, and none join in fear of the gods?
We’ll buy back our own harm with what is most dear to us.
We would have to think the gods had no minds, to pray for murderers.
Truly we are creatures of labor and suffering, and nothing for long. Labor and suffering, and the plain sight of our destiny is the cruelest thing of all.
It is the thoughts of men that are deceitful, Their pledges that are loose.
There be many shapes of mystery; And many things God brings to be, Past hope or fear. And the end men looked for cometh not, And a path is there where no man thought. So hath it fallen here.
Yet censure strikes hard at women, while men, the true agents of trouble, hear no reproach.
O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good.
Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass.
Not for the first time I find our lives are a shadow, and I am not afraid to say that people who think they have everything figured out and are masters of logic – they are responsible for the greatest folly. No human being is happy. Strike it rich and you are luckier than your neighbor – but happy, never.