Source: Theogony / Works and Days
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Famous Hesiod Quotes
Source: Work and Days
“Plan harm for another and harm yourself most, The evil we hatch always comes home to roost.”
Source: Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns: Including Theogony and Works and Days
“Observe due measure, for timing is in all things the most important factor.”
“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.”
Source: Works and Days
“No whispered rumours which the many spread can wholly perish.”
Source: The British Poets: Including Translations. In One Hundred Volumes. LXXXVIII
“Potter is piqued with potter, joiner with joiner, beggar begrudges beggar, and singer singer.”
Source: Theogony ; and, Works and days
“Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death.”
Source: The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis
“Fools, they do not even know how much more is the half than the whole.”
“Invite the man that loves thee to a feast, but let alone thine enemy.”
Source: The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis
“Diligence increaseth the fruit of toil. A dilatory man wrestles with losses.”
“For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and then again nothing deadlier than a bad one.”
“For both faith and want of faith have destroyed men alike.”
“How easily some light report is set about, but how difficult to bear.”
“Actions from youth, advice from the middle-aged, prayers from the aged.”
“He for himself weaves woe who weaves for others woe, and evil counsel on the counselor recoils.”
“Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and contrives presumptuous deeds.”