Quotes from BION

Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom.

A good leader makes a good follower.

Let Eros call the Muses, let the Muses bear Eros.

Of all evil things the least quantity is to be borne, but of learning and knowledge, the more a man hath, the better he can bear it.

If sweet these songs are not, what profit more Have I to labour at them o'er and o'er?

I to the sandy shore and seaward slope Will go, and try with murmured song to bend The cruel Galatea. My sweet hope I'll cast away--when life itself doth end.

Happy is love or friendship when returned-- The lovers whose pure flames have equal burned.

Sleep no more, Cypris, beneath thy purple coverlet, but awake to thy misery; put on the sable robe and fall to beating thy breast, and tell it to the world: The beauteous Adonis is dead.

From a constant dripping forever running, as the story goes, even stone is hollowed into a cleft.

It is not seemly for mortals to judge the works of the gods, for all of them are holy and gratifying.

But since Heaven wills one life to man should fall, And this is very brief--too brief for all We think to do, why should we fret and moil, And vex ourselves with never-ending toil?

Winter is cruel to bear; I fear snow and chills. Let spring, thrice-desired to me, be here all year round, when neither frost nor sun oppresses us. In spring everything burgeons, everything pleasant blossoms in spring, and night and day are equal for humans.

May Love the Muses evermore invite, The Muses bring me Love! And to requite My passion may they give sweet song to me, Than which no sweeter remedy can be.

If Saturn's son, and changeful Fate, assigned A double life-time to our mortal kind, That one in joys and one in woes be past, Who had his woes first would have joys at last.

How brief the life allotted us by Fate!

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.

The road to Hades is easy to travel.

Old age is the harbor of all ills.

Wealth is the sinews of affairs.

Evening Star, gold light of Aphrodite born in the foam, Evening Star, holy diamond of the glassblue night, you are dimmer than the moon, brighter than another star. Hello, good friend! I'm on my way to serenade my shepherd love. Give me your rays in place of moonlight. There was a new moon today, but quickly set. I am no thief, no highway man to plague a traveler at night. A lover I am. And those in love must be helped.