Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu (sayings recorded between the 6th and 3rd centuries BCE)

"Without its equipment,
     An army is lost;
Without provisions,
     An army is lost;
Without base stores,
     An army is lost."

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

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Brynhild (Saga of the Volsungs)

Brynhild (from the Saga of the Volsungs)

"It is better to fight with your enemies than to be burned at home."

• From The Saga of the Volsungs (chapter 22), by an anonymous 13th century Icelander, translated by Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics, 1990, 1999).

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Mencius

Mencius (4th century BCE)

"He who delights and worries on account of the Empire is certain to become a true king."

• From The Mencius (Book I, Part B, section 4) by Mencius, translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 2003).

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Homer

Homer (flourished c. 700 BCE)

"You have no need to be so stubborn. Even the gods themselves, for all their greater majesty, honor and power, are capable of being swayed."

• From The Iliad (Book 9, approx. line 500) by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and revised by Peter Jones (Penguin Classics, 2014).

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Egil Skallagrimsson

Egil Skallagrimsson (c.10th century)

"My stock
stands on the brink,
pounded as plane-trees
on the forest's rim,
no man is glad
who carries the bones
of his dead kinsman
out of the bed."

• A poem attributed to Egil Skallagrimsson in Egil's Saga (chapter 79), recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson, translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

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Tacitus

Tacitus (c. 56-117+)

"When the strong hand decides, restraint and integrity are words that belong to the victor."

• Germania (section 36) by Tacitus, translated by Harold Mattingly and edited by J. B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.

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Mark Twain

Mark Twain (c. 1835-1910)

"In order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."

• From the The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Chapter II), by Mark Tain (originally published 1876).

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Xenophon

Xenophon (c. 420-350 BCE)

"How shall we fight our enemies if we're cutting one another down? How will any city welcome us as friends when they see anarchy rampant among us?"

• Anabasis Kyrou (Upcountry March of Cyrus, Book V, section 7) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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Jia Yi

Jia Yi (c. 201-169 BCE)

"The span of life is fated;
How can you guess its ending?
Heaven and Earth are the furnace,
The workman, the Creator;
His coal is the yin and the yang,
his copper, all things of creation."

• Excerpt of a Jia Yi poem (c. 174 BCE), included in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji, 84) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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The Buddha

The Buddha (lived c. 6th-5th century BCE)

"All tremble before violence.
All fear death.
Having done the same yourself,
you should neither harm nor kil."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 10), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (c. 1809-1849)

"With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not--they cannot at will be excited with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind."

• From Edgar Allan Poe's preface to The Raven and Other Poems (c. 1845) in Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Works (JKL Classics, 2017).

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Confucius

Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE)

"Man's very life is honesty, in that without it he will be lucky indeed if he escapes with his life."

• The Analects of Confucius (Book VI, section 17) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989).

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Alexander the Great (recorded by Arrian)

Alexander the Great (c. 356-323 BCE)

"Stand firm; for well you know that hardship and danger are the price of glory, and that sweet is the savour of a life of courage and of deathless renown beyond the grave."

• A quote attributed to Alexander the Great in The Campaigns of Alexander (Book 5, section 26) by the Roman/Bithynian historian Arrian, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and revised by J. Hamilton. New York; Penguin Classics, 1971.

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Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1313-1375)

"A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again."

• The Decameron (Second Day, Seventh Story) by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by G. H. McWilliam. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

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Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430)

"Human superiority or inferiority is not determined by sexual difference but by the degree to which one has perfected one's own nature and morals."

• The Book of the City of Ladies (Part I, chapter 9) by Christine de Pizan, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant (Penguin Classics, 1999).

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Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

"Justice is a sort of mean state, only not in the same way as the other virtues are, but because it aims at a mean, whereas injustice aims at the extremes."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book V, section v, Bekker page 1133b) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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The Didache

The Didache (anonymously-written Christian text, created around year 100)

"Every prophet who teaches the truth but fails to practice what he preaches is a false prophet."

• The anonymously-written Didache ("The Teaching," c. 100 CE), chapter 11, section 10, translated by Cyril C. Richardson (1970) in After The New Testament: A Reader In Early Christianity, edited by Bart D. Ehrman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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Xenophon

Xenophon (c. 420-350 BCE)

"If we have to fight, we had better go about it so that we fight as effectively as we can."

• Anabasis Kyrou (Upcountry March of Cyrus, Book IV, section 6) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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The Buddha

The Buddha (lived c. 6th-5th century BCE)

"As a bee flying from a flower,
having taken up its nectar,
does not harm its luster or fragrance,
so should the sage wander in the village."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 4), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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St. Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa of Avila (c. 1515-1582)

"The soul remains all the time in that centre with its God. We might say that union is as if the ends of two wax candles were joined so that the light they give is one: the wicks and the wax and the light are all one."

• From Interior Castle (Seventh Mansions, chapter II) by St. Teresa of Avila, translated by E. Allison Peers (Dover Publications, 2007).

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Tacitus

Tacitus (c. 56-117+)

"This is the crowning injustice of war; all claim credit for success, while defeat is laid to the account of one."

• From the Agricola (section 27) by Tacitus, translated by Harold Mattingly and edited by J. B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.

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