Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430)

"Anyone who wanted could cite plentiful examples of exceptional women in the world today: it's simply a matter of looking for them."

• The Book of the City of Ladies (Part I, chapter 41) by Christine de Pizan, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant (Penguin Classics, 1999).

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Thucydides

Thucydides (460-400 BCE)

"There is no need to talk about what happened long ago: there our evidence would be that of hearsay rather than that of eyewitnesses amongst our audience."

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book I, section 73) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

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Confucius

Confucius (551-479 BCE)

"In old days men studied for the sake of self-improvement; nowadays men study in order to impress other people."

• The Analects of Confucius (Book XIV, section 25) translated by Arthur Waley (Vintage Books, 1989).

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Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

"The wish for friendship develops rapidly, but friendship does not."

• From The Nicomachean Ethics (Book VIII, section 3, Bekker page 1156b) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

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The Buddha

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

"Darkened is this world.
 Few have insight here.
 Like a bird set free from a net,
 few go to a higher world."

• The Dhammapada (Verses on the Way, Chapter 13), recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Translation by Glenn Wallis, 2004.

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Mo Tzu

Mo Tzu (c. 5th century BCE)

"If a government is rich in worthy men, then the administration will be characterized by weight and substance; but if it is poor in such men, then the administration will be a paltry affair."

• From the Basic Writings of Mo Tzu (Honoring the Worthy, part I, section 8), translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1963).

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Odin (from Hávamál)

Odin (Norse god)

"Where you recognize evil, call it evil,
and give no truce to your enemies."

• This quote comes from stanza 127 of Hávamál (Sayings of the High One), an old poem which was preserved in the 13th-century Poetic Edda which was produced anonymously in Iceland. The translation is by Carolyne Larrington (Oxford University Press, 2014).

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