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Callimachus Quotes
310 BC–240 BC Greece
Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 310 BC – c. 240 BC) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he reputedly wrote over 800 works, most of which do not survive, in a wide variety of genres.
Random Callimachus quote
18 quotes
Surely much knowledge is a grievous thing for him who does not control his tongue; this man is really a child with a knife.
The gods always give small things to small men.
The grammarian Callimachus used to say that a big book is equivalent to a big evil.
May I not keep concealed anything that is good.
He sware: but what they say is true—that lovers' oaths enter not the ears of the immortals.
When I speak fiction, be it such fiction as persuades the listener's ear!
Surely the poet's skill is sovereign remedy for all ill.
Here sleeps Saon, of Acanthus, son of Dicon, a holy sleep: say not that the good die.
May I die when I have learned that that man has breathed his last.
Oft by stealth
O Charidas, what of the under world? Great darkness. And what of the resurrection? A lie. And Pluto? A fable; we perish utterly.
Worries then weigh less on a man, and of thirty parts one is removed, when he blurts out his troubles to a friend, or a fellow-traveller, or even finally to the deaf gusts of wind.
The Graces, three erewhile, are three no more:
Nothing unattested do I sing.
And of all that passed my teeth and plunged into the ungrateful belly nothing remained till the morrow; but the only things which I still keep are those that I laid in my ears.
Why do you rouse a sleeping tear?
Set a thief to catch a thief.
Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore;
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