Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

"Are we not more likely to achieve our aim if we have a target?"

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book I, chapter I) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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Hans Denck

Hans Denck (c. 1495-1527)

"Oaths and swearing should not be done because no human has power to keep them."

• From Concerning True Love (c. 1527), by Hans Denck, translated b D. Liechty (Paulist Press, 1994).

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Confucius

Confucius (6th-5th century BCE)

"The demands that a gentleman makes are upon himself; those that a small man makes are upon others."

• From The Analects of Confucius (Book XV, 20) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989).

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Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179-1241)

"Although we have been told various stories and have heard about other dees, it seems to us better that our account shoullater be expanded than that it should have to be emended."

• From King Harald's Saga by Snorri Sturlusson, translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson (Penguin Classics, 1966, 2005).

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Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

"Just as at the Olympic Games it is not the best-looking or the strongest men present that are crowned with wreaths, but the competetors (because  it is from them that the winners come), so it is those who act that rightly win the honours and rewards in life."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book I, chapter VIII) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400)

"Wherever there is drunkenness about
No secret can be hidden, make no doubt."

• From The Canterbury Tales (The Man of Law's Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated to modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).

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Egil Skallagrimsson

Egil Skallagrimsson (semi-mythical 10th-century Icelandic Viking-Poet)

"King, bear in mind
how my ode is wrought,
I take delight
in the hearing I gained.
Through my lips I stirred
from the depths of my heart
Odin's sea of verse
about the craftsman of war."

• Egil's Saga (recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson), translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

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The Buddha

The Buddha (This quote was recorded c. 3rd century BCE)

"The person who has no sense of 'mine'
anywhere in body and mind,
and who does not grieve for what is not -
that one is called a 'practitioner.'"

• From The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 25), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Tacitus

Tacitus (c. 56-117)

"The more I think about history, ancient or modern, the more ironical all human affairs seem."

• The Annals of Imperial Rome (chapter 5) by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996.

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Anna Komnene

Anna Komnene (c. 1083-1153)

"The general should not invariably seek victory, in my opinion, by drawing the sword; there are times when he should be prepared to use finesse, if the opportunity appears and events alow it, and so achieve a complete triumph."

• From The Alexiad (Book XIII) by Anna Komnene, translated by E.R.A. Sewter, (Penguin Classics, 2009).

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King Harald Hardrada

King Harald Hardrada (c. 1015-1066 CE)

"Now I go creeping from forest
To forest with little honour;
Who knows, my name may yet become
Renowned far and wide in the end."

• Quote supposedly composed by a fifteen-year-old Harald "Hardrada" Sigurdsson, in King Harald's Saga by Snorri Sturlusson, translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson (Penguin Classics, 1966, 2005).

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Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu (6th-5th century BCE)

"Man models himself on earth,
Earth on heaven,
Heaven on the way,
And the way on that which is naturally so."

• From Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Book One, XXV), translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963). 

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Homer

Homer (Iliad written c. 700 BCE)

"Battles are won by deeds;
the council-chamber is the place for words. This is no time to
talk, but to fight."

• From The Iliad (Book 16) by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and revised by Peter Jones (Penguin Classics, 2014).

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Egil Skallagrimsson

Egil Skallagrimsson (10th Century)

"I awoke early
to heap my words;
as a servant of speech
I did my morning's work.
I have piled a mound
of praise that long
will stand without crumbling
in poetry's field."

• Egil's Saga (recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson), translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

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Thucydides/ Pericles

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE, speaking in the character of Pericles)

"We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972). The quote comes from a speech that Thucydides wrote while in the character of the Pericles.

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Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (Recorded 6th-3rd Century BCE)

"Military dispositions
     Take form like water.
     Water shuns the high
     And hastens to the low.
     War shuns the strong
     And attacks the weak.
Water shapes its current
     From the lie of the land.
The warrior shapes his victory
     From the dynamic of the enemy.

• From Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Chapter 6), translated by John Minford (Penguin Classics, 2009).

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Chuang Tzu

Chuang Tzu (c. 370-287 BCE)

"The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror - going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing."

• From Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (section 16, "Fit for Emperors and Kings"), translated by Burton Watson. (Columbia University Press, 1996).

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Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430)

"Though some women are undeniably silly, there are many others who have more intelligence, sensitivity and shrewdness than a whole group of men put together."

• From The Book of the City of Ladies (Part I, chapter 13) by Christine de Pizan, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant (Penguin Classics, 1999).

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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (c. 1743-1826)

"Determine never to be idle. No person will ever have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing."

• From a letter sent by Thomas Jefferson to Martha "Patsy" Jefferson on May 5, 1787.

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Geoffrey Chuacer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)

"Now as I've drunk a draught of corn-ripe ale,
By God it stands to reason I can strike
On some good story that you all will like.
For though I am a wholly vicious man
Don't think I can't tell moral tales. I can!"

• From The Canterbury Tales (The Pardoner's Prologue) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated to modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).

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The Buddha

The Buddha (This Quote recorded around 3rd century BCE)

"The person whose knowledge is profound,
who is wise, knowing which is the path
and which is not the path,
who has attained the highest goal,
that one I call superior."

• From The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 26), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Thucydides

Thucydides (460-400 BCE)

"The best and safest thing of all is when a large force is so well disciplined that it seems to be acting like one man."

• History of the Peloponnessian War (Book II) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972). The quote comes from a speech that Thucydides wrote while in the character of the Spartan king, Archidamus.

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