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Pindar Quotes

518 BC–438 BC Greece

Pindar (518 BC – 438 BC) was a Boeotian poet, counted as one of the nine lyric poets of Greece. The only works of his to have survived complete are a series of odes written to celebrate the victors in athletic games.

Greece
Poets

Random Pindar quote

17 quotes

But if a man shall hope in aught he does
To escape the eyes of god, he makes an error.

War is sweet to those who have no experience of it,
but the experienced man trembles exceedingly at heart on its approach.

Days to come will prove the surest witness.

Time is the best preserver of righteous men.

Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.

I shall halt. Truth does not always
Gain if she displays
Her face unflinching;
and silence is often a man’s wisest counsel.

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

Law, the king of all mortals and immortals.

Whoever knows many things
By nature is a poet.

Great danger
Calls to no coward's heart.

Best blessing of all is water,
And gold like a fiery flame gleaming at night,
Supreme amidst the pride of lordly wealth.

For words
Live longer down the years than deeds.

Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.

Here profits not
To tell the whole truth with clear face unveiled.
Often is man's best wisdom to be silent.

A good deed hidden in silence dies.

But among mortals the one is deprived of success by empty boasting, so another, too much distrustful of his strength, fails to secure the honours that rightfully belong to him, being dragged backward by a spirit deficient in daring.

Creatures of a day! What is a man?
What is he not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men
A gleam of splendour given of Heaven,
Then rests on them a light of glory
And blessèd are their days.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Pindar (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.