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Solón Quotes

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short-term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy. He wrote poetry for pleasure, as patriotic propaganda, and in defence of his constitutional reform.

Modern knowledge of Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive in fragments and appear to feature interpolations by later authors and by the general paucity of documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC. Ancient authors such as Herodotus and Plutarch are the main sources, but wrote about Solon long after his death. 4th-century orators, such as Aeschines, tended to attribute to Solon all the laws of their own, much later times. Wikipedia  

✵ 638 BC – 558 BC
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Solón: 17   quotes 20   likes

Famous Solón Quotes

“Call no man happy until he is dead.”

Solón

“No more good must be attempted than the nation can bear”

Solón

“In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.”

Solón

“If through your vices you afflicted are,
Lay not the blame of your distress on God;
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.”

Solón

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 5, p. 25.

Solón Quotes

“Rule, after you have first learned to submit to rule.”

Solón

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 12, p. 29.

Learning

“An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off than him…He is the one who deserves to be described as happy. But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate.”

Solón

Herodotus (trans. Robin Waterfield) The Histories Bk. 1, ch. 32, pp. 15-16.

Dead , Happiness

“That city in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.”

Solón

Plutarch Solon, ch. 18; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+18.1
Having been asked what city was best to live in.

“No fool can be silent at a feast.”

Solón

Epictetus, Fragment 71, translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0237&query=chapter%3D%23192&chunk=book

Fools

“Watch well each separate citizen,
Lest having in his heart of hearts
A secret spear, one still may come
Saluting you with cheerful face,
And utter with a double tongue
The feigned good wishes of his wary mind.”

Solón

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 13, p. 29.

Secret , Heart

“As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change.”

Solón

Plutarch Solon, ch. 27; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+27.1

Life , Wisdom , People , Change

“I grow old ever learning many things.”

Solón

Plutarch, Solon, ch. 31; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+31.1
Variant translation: As I grow older, I constantly learn more.

Learning

“Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them.”

Solón

Reported in George Shelley Hughs, Ancient Civilizations (1896), p. 596.

Men , Law

“Consider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath.”

Solón

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 12, p. 29.

“Wealth I desire to have; but wrongfully to get it, I do not wish.
Justice, even if slow, is sure.”

Solón

Plutarch Solon, ch. 2; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+2.1

Justice , Wealth

“Do not counsel what is most pleasant, but what is best.”

Solón

Demetrius of Phalerum, "Apophthegms of the Seven Sages," in Early Greek Philosophy, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library, volume 525), p. 141

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