The Gods rank work above virtues.
Inhibition is no good provider for a needy man.
And the evil wish is most evil to the wisher.
He is a fool who tries to match his strength with the stronger.
Never make a companion equal to a brother.
When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.
Neither make thy friend equal to a brother; but if thou shalt have made him so, be not the first to do him wrong.
Labor is no disgrace.
Gain not base gains; base gains are the same as losses.
No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it, too, is a kind of divinity.
The artist envies what the arties gains, The bard the rival bard’s successful strains.
Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace.
No whispered rumours which the many spread can wholly perish.
False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth.
Love, who is most beautiful among the immortal gods, the melter of limbs, overwhelms in their hearts the intelligence and wise counsel of all gods and all men.
The gods being always close to men perceive those who afflict others with unjust devices and do not fear the wrath of heaven.
In work there is no shame; shame is in the idleness.
For now indeed is the race of iron; and men never cease from labour and sorrow by day and from perishing by night.
And Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men too, when they, at their birth, have grey hair on their temples.
Men must sweat to attain virtue.