What’s the (Greek) motto with you?

What’s the (Greek) motto with you?

We are all aware that many of the great quotations of life were either said by a Greek or are about a Greek.

So I have decided to list some of the most famous ones – some you may recognise, but did you know it was a Greek who spoke them?

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  • My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher – Socrates
  • Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head – Euripides
  • Well begun is half done – Aristotle
  • Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something – Plato
  • If you live with a cripple, you will learn to limp – Plutarch
  • Love is a serious mental disease – Plato
  • If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: “He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned” – Aristotle
  • Because only we (the Greeks), contrary to the Barbarians, never count the enemy in battle – Aeschylus
  • Until now we used to say that the Greeks fight like heroes. Now we shall say: The heroes fight like Greeks – apparently said by Winston Churchill from a speech he delivered from the BBC in the first days of the Greco-Italian war

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine – Socrates

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6 Comments

  1. 5th November 2015 / 10:15 am

    This is great! Love the list. My fav. is the Aristotle one “If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: “He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned” – Aristotle I have to remember this!

    • Ekaterina
      Author
      6th November 2015 / 6:26 am

      🙂 thanks Marissa!!

  2. 7th March 2014 / 3:27 pm

    This is a great list. I need to start incorporating a few of them in my life more often!

    • EBotziou
      Author
      7th March 2014 / 4:31 pm

      Haha! 🙂

  3. 7th March 2014 / 2:28 pm

    What cool quotes. A lot of them have contemporary equivalents but obviously the meanings are the same centuries later.

    Yay for the Greeks. Shame on the Danish King. I wonder if he would do the same if I came to the palace on my mountain bike!!

    • EBotziou
      Author
      7th March 2014 / 2:50 pm

      Haha! I’m sure the mountain bike is quite fearsome!