The Wisdom of the Great

By Sam Majdi

The 2nd book: The The Wisdom of the Great is a unique biographical collection of nearly 2700 quotations from 450 notables of 50 countries in the span of 30 centuries. It was published on demand by iUniverse in 2012. It contains Names Index, comprehensive Subject Index and Glossary and Anonymous section. Reading this book gives you the best opportunity to explore the wisdom and insight of great people all around the world. Its variety of topics will give you a new perspective in many walks of life and makes you a brand new, improved person. It can be purchased online for $33.95 for soft cover and $3.99 for Kindle edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462053322

Sam Majdi

Sam Majdi is a retired teacher of English, with a B.A. in English literature and has been a member of Kansas Authors Club since 2001. He has over 30 years experience in teaching in high schools and colleges. He is also the author of three literary books. His 3rd book The Nobel Laureates in Literature (1901–2014) was published on demand by Amazon in 2015; the only book in this field. It is the biography of 111 outstanding literary figures who won this prestigious prize in its 114-year history. It contains Names Index (the date they were born and the year they were awarded the prize), plus a comprehensive Glossary. This book is a clear mirror through which you can see how these great people contributed to world democracy and civilization. For more information about the book and the days of free Kindle promotion, please search for Sam Majdi. The book can be purchased online or by author for $12.95 (the Kindle edition is $3.99). The free Kindle promotion days for the 3rd book for this season are: 5-7, 5-25, 6-10, and 6-18.

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Copyright © 2012 by Sam Majdi.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-5331-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-5332-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011962038

iUniverse rev. date: 02/21/2012

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Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgement

Encyclopedias used:

Abbreviations

Part I

(1) Homer

(2) Hesiod

(3) Aesop (Aesopus)

(4) Heraclitus Ephesus

(5) Aeschylus

(6) Pindar

(7) Sophocles

(8) Euripides

(9) Herodotus

(10) Socrates

(11) Hippocrates

(12) Aristophanes

(13) Xenophon

(14) Plato

(15) Aristotle

(16) Terence, orig. Publius Terentius Afer

(17) Marcus Tullius Cicero

(18) Virgil or vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

(19) Horace, Latin: Quintus Horatius Flaccus

(20) Ovid

(21) Publilius Syrus

(22) Seneca (Lucius Annaeus)

Part II

(23) Plutarch

(24) Omar Khayyám

(25) Saadi, Sadi (Sheikh Muslih Od-Din)

(26) Dante Alighieri

(27) Geoffrey Chaucer

(28) Thomas à Kempis; orig. Thomas Hamerken

(29) Leonardo da Vinci

(30) Michelangelo Buonarroti

(31) François Rabelais

(32) John Heywood

(33) Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

(34) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

(35) Sir Walter Raleigh, or Ralegh

(38) George Chapman

(39) Sir Francis Bacon (Viscount Saint Alban)

(41) Christopher Marlowe

(42) William Shakespeare

(43) John Donne

(44) Ben (jamin) Jonson

(45) Joseph Hall

(46) Robert Burton

(48) Thomas Middleton

(49) Philip Massinger

(50) John Selden

(51) Robert Herrick

(52) Francis Quarles

(53) George Herbert

(54) René Descartes

Part III

(55) Edmund Waller

(56) Thomas Fuller

(58) Sir John Suckling

(59) Samuel Butler

(60) François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

(62) Jean de La Fontaine

(63) Jean Babtiste Poquelin Molière

(64) Blaise Pascal

(65) John Bunyan

(66) John Dryden

(67) John Locke

(68) Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza

(69) Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

(70) Thomas Shadwell

(71) Jean de La Bruyère

(72) John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

(73) Daniel Defoe

(74) Matthew Prior

(75) Jonathan Swift (Isaac Bickerstaff)

(77) Joseph Addison

(78) Sir Richard Steele

(79) Isaac Watts

(80) Edward Young

(81) Bishop George Cloyne Berkeley

(82) John Gay

(84) Baron de Montesquieu

(86) Philip Dormer Stanhope,

(88) James Thomson

Part IV

(89) John Wesley

(90) Benjamin Franklin

(91) Henry Fielding

(92) William Pitt (The Elder),

(93) Samuel Johnson (Dr. Johnson)

(94) Jean Jacques Rousseau

(95) Laurence Sterne

(96) Thomas Gray

(97) Oliver Goldsmith

(98) Edmund Burke

(99) Charles Churchill

(100) William Cowper

(101) George Washington

(102) Patrick Henry

(103) Edward Gibbon

(104) Thomas Jefferson

(105) Sir William Jones

(106) Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

(108) William Blake

(109) Robert Burns

(110) Johann Christoph Friedrich

(111) Joanna Baillie

(112) Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

(113) William Wordsworth

(114) Sydney Smith

(115) Sir Walter Scott, First Baronet

(116) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(118) Charles Lamb

(119) Thomas Campbell

(120) William Hazlitt

(121) Thomas Moore

(122) William Ellery Channing

(123) Charles Caleb Colton

(124) George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron

(125) Lady Marguerite Gardiner,

(126) Percy Bysshe Shelley

(127) William Cullen Bryant

(128) John Keats

(129) Thomas Carlyle

(130) Horace Mann

(131) Christian Johann Heinrich Heine

(132) Honoré de Balzac (Balssa)

(133) Thomas Hood

(134) Amos Bronson Alcott

(135) Lord Macaulay, Thomas Babington

Part V

(136) John Henry, Cardinal Newman

(137) Victor-Marie Hugo

(138) Alexandre Dumas (The Elder)

(139) Ralph Waldo Emerson

(140) Edward George Earle Lytton

(141) George Sand

(142) Nathaniel Hawthorne

(143) Benjamin Disraeli,

(144) Elizabeth Barrett Browning

(145) John Stuart Mill

(146) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(147) John Greenleaf Whittier

(148) Edgar Allan Poe

(149) Abraham Lincoln; Nickname:

(150) Edward Fitzgerald

(151) Alfred Lord Tennyson, First Baron

(152) Oliver Wendell Holmes

(153) William Makepeace Thackeray

(154) Charles (John Huffam) Dickens

(155) Robert Browning

(156) Henry Ward Beecher

(157) Edwin Hubbell Chapin

(158) Anthony Trollope

(159) Charlotte Brontë

(161) Henry David Thoreau

(162) Henry Wheeler Shaw (Josh Billings)

(163) John Ruskin

(164) James Russell Lowell

(165) Walt (Walter) Whitman

(166) Charles Kingsley

(167) George Eliot

(168) Herbert Spencer

(170) Henrik Johan Ibsen

(171) Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

(172) Alexander Smith

(173) Louisa May Alcott

(174) Robert Green Ingersoll

(175) Sir John Lubbock

(176) Lord Acton

(177) Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

(178) Samuel Butler

(179) Thomas Bailey Aldrich

(180) Sir William Schwenck Gilbert

(181) William Dean Howells

(182) Algernon Charles Swinburne

(183) Henry Brooks Adams

(184) John Milton Hay

(185) John Viscount Morley of Blackburn

(186) Henry Austin Dobson

(187) William James

(188) Richard Watson Gilder

(189) Anatole France

(190) Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

(192) Richard Jefferies

(193) Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson

Part VI

(194) George Augustus Moore

(196) Oscar Wilde

(197) Elbert Green Hubbard

(198) George Bernard Shaw

(199) Clarence Seward Darrow

(200) Joseph Conrad

(201) Theodore Roosevelt (Teddy)

(202) Havelock (Henry) Ellis

(203) Alfred Edward Housman

(204) Sir James Matthew Barrie

(205) Sir Rabindranath Tagore

(206) O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)

(207) George Santayana

(208) (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling

(209) William Butler Yeats

(210) Logan Pearsall Smith

(211) Romain Rolland

(212) Herbert George Wells

(213) (Enoch) Arnold Bennett

(214) Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)

(215) George Horace Lorimer

(216) William Allen White

(217) Mohandas Karamchand

(218) André Gide

(219) Bertrand Russell (Arthur William)

(220) Arthur Chapman

(223) Sir Winston Churchill

(226) John Edward Masefield

(227) Albert Einstein

(228) William Penn Adair Rogers

(229) Helen Adams Keller

(230) Henry Louis Mencken

(232) Franz Kafka

(233) Kahlil (Khalil) Gibran

(235) Will (William James) Durant

(236) William Rose Benét

(237) Christopher Darlington Morley

(238) Henry Miller (Valentine)

(239) Edna St. Vincent Millay

(240) James Bryant Conant

(241) Aldous Leonard Huxley

(242) Robert Ranke Graves

(243) Ogden Nash (Frederick)

(245) Albert Camus

(246) Andy Rooney (Andrew Aitken)

Part VII

(247) Richard Rolle de Hampole

(248) Francesco Petrarca Petrarch

(249) Ferdinand Magellan

(250) Martin Luther

(251) Sir John Harrington

(252) Saint Francis de Sales

(253) Baltasar Gracián (Y Morales)

(254) Jeremy Taylor

(255) George Granville (1st Baron Lansdowne)

(256) John Norris

(257) Matthew Henry

(258) Colley Cibber

(259) David Hume

(260) John Henry Newton

(261) Bishop George Horne

(262) Madame Roland

(263) James Montgomery

(264) Arthur Schopenhauer

(265) Joseph Hunter

(266) Felicia Dorothea Hemans

(267) Henry George Bohn

(268) Thomas Chandler Haliburton

(269) Douglas William Jerrold

(270) William Ewart Gladstone

(271) Samuel Smiles

(272) Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

(273) Maria Monk

(274) Mrs. Amelia Ball Poppuck Welby

(275) Dion Boucicault

(276) Mary Baker Eddy

(277) Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

(278) George MacDonald

(279) Dorothy Nevill (Fanny Walpole)

(280) Thomas Edward Brown

(281) Phillips Brooks

(282) John Burroughs

(283) Joaquin Miller (Cincinnatus Hiner)

(284) Thomas Hardy

(285) Edward Rowland Sill

(286) Joseph Parry

(287) Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce

(288) Joel Chandler Harris

(289) William Osler

(290) Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

(291) David Starr Jordan

(292) Edgar Watson Howe

(293) Olive Schreiner (Emilie Albertina)

(294) Ella Wheeler Wilcox

(295) James Kenneth Stephen

(296) Abraham Cahan

(297) William Ashley (Billy) Sunday

(298) Oliver Herford

(299) Henry Ford, Sr.

(300) Lord Thomas Robert Dewar (1st Baron)

(301) Arthur Zimmermann

(302) Charles Proteus Steinmetz

(303) Bernard Berenson

(304) Arturo Toscanini

(305) Senator Francis Theodore Green

(306) Edmond (Eugène Alexis) Rostand

(307) Harvey Samuel Firestone

(308) Albert Jay Nock

(309) Edward Lee Thorndike

(310) Albert Schweitzer

(311) Ernest Benn

(312) Ralph Barton Perry

(313) Leonard H. Robbins

(314) Dr. Allama Mohammad Iqbal

(315) Carl August Sandburg

(316) Channing Pollock

(317) Joseph Fort Newton

(318) Harry Hibbard Kemp

(319) Katherine Mansfield

(320) Eugene Gladstone O’neill

(321) Anna Akhmatova

(322) Conrad Potter Aiken

(323) William Feather

(324) Eddie Cantor

(325) Dr. Karl Augustus Menninger

(326) Mao Zedong (Zetung)

(327) Lin Yutang

(328) Dr. Charlotte Whitton

(329) Golda Meir

(330) Norman Vincent Peale

(331) Louis Adamic

(332) Helen (Elaine) Steiner Rice

(333) Wilfred A. (Arlan) Peterson

(334) Dame Mary Barbara

(335) James Mercer Langston Hughes

(336) Louis Nizer

(337) Dag Hammarskjöld

(338) Nathan Marsh Pusey

(339) Frida Cahlo

(340) John Robert Wooden

(341) Max Gluckman

(342) Sam(uel) Levenson (Samuel Levine)

(343) Barbara Wertheim Tuchman

(344) Mary C. Crowley

(345) Norman Cousins

(346) John William Gardner

(347) Morris (Langlo) West

(348) Pearl Bailey (Mae)

(349) Ann Landers

(350) Nelson (Rolihlahla) Mandela

(351) Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd

(352) William Arthur Ward

(353) Emil Zatopek

(354) Daisaku Ikeda

(355) Milan Kundera

(356) Beverly Sills (Belle Silverman)

(357) Richard (Richie) Benaud

(358) King Hussein I

(359) Antonio Gala Velasco

(360) Germaine Greer

(361) Itzhak Perlman

(362) Jenny Shipley

(363) Taslima Nasrin

Part VIII

(364) Isaac Pocock, Jr.

(365) Christian Nestell Bovee

(366) Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney

(367) Elizabeth Akers Allen

(368) John B. Bogart

(369) Dr. Frank Crane

(371) Dr. Louis Edward Bisch

(372) Morris Abel Beer

(373) Sharon Curtis

(375) Norman MacEwan

(376) Claude Cox

(377) Roy L. Smith

(378) H.E. Jansen

(379) Andrew Chapman

(380) John Tiorio

(381) R.H. Grenville

(382) Katherine N. Davis

(383) Charles Richards

(384) Stan (ley) Dale

(385) Bettie B. Youngs

(386) Kay Ingram

(387) Arnold H. Glasgow

(388) E. Scott O’ Conner

(389) Dr. Mary Ann Allison

(390) Dean Briggs

(391) Harold C. Chase

(392) Franklin P. Jones

(393) Violet George

Part IX

Anonymous

Glossary

Names Index

Introduction

Sam Majdi, the retired teacher of English has always been interested in quotations and is the author of Lovers Paradise Book of 222 Love Quotations. He has also been an advocate of students and teachers rights. He has been living with his family in Wichita, Kansas for over 23 years.

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American editor, believes "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. The author is proud he has been the inspirer of respect, freedom and love to all his students.

Dr. Nathan Pusey (1907-2001), 24th president of Harvard University quotes, The best teacher is not life, but the crystallized and distilled experience of the most sensitive, reflective, and most observant of our human beings, and this experience you will find preserved in our great books and nowhere else. That is the reason why Sam has spent nearly two decades to select the best, simplest and most impressive quotations from almost 450 writers and notables from 50 countries of the world in the span of three millenniums (9th century B.C. to the present time.)

It has been written to instill in your minds the finest thoughts and wise words of the greatest men in history, to be the best guide for you towards a more productive life. It is about the lives, works, achievements, and quotations of literary figures, philosophers, scientists, statesmen, kings, queens, saints, political and religious leaders, athletes, entrepreneurs . . . Many of these people are Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize recipients, or holders of other prestigious awards.

The author is proud to announce that 86 out of 127 American figures are mentioned in the index of the Encyclopedia People Who Made America and 30 of them are among the list of 100 People Who Influenced and Changed the World.

The text of the book is comprised of 10 parts as the following, with one or two selected quotations for each section.

1. Part 1: Those who were born in the period of B. C.

From Homer (9th century B. C.) to Seneca (4 B. C.-65 A. D.)

From: Seneca, Roman philosopher:

So great will be the frenzy of ambition that you will

see nobody behind you, if there is anybody in front of you.

2. Part II: The people born in A. D.

From Plutarch (46-120 A. D.) until the end of 16th century:

René Descartes (1596-1650).

From Saadi (1184-1291), Persian poet

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you have no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain.

From: François Rabelais (1494-1553), French philosopher:

A fool in a high position is like a man in the top of a mountain—

everything appears small to him and he appears small to everybody.

3. Part III: The people born in 17th century

From: Edmund Waller (1606-1687), English poet, to: James

Thomson (1700-1748), Scottish poet and journalist

From: Isaac Watts (1674-1748), English minister

When I survey the wondrous cross,

On which the prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all pride.

4. Part IV: The people born in 18th century

From: John Wesley (1703-1791), English preacher to: Lord

Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), English critic and historian.

From: biography of Patrick Henry (1736-1799), American orator

and statesman:

Every great movement must have a variety of leaders to make it

successful. Thomas Jefferson was the philosopher of Revolution, Samuel Adams, the political engineer, George Washington, the

military genius, and Patrick Henry, the orator.

5. Part V: The people born in the first half of 19th century

From: John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), English

Catholic leader and writer, to: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894),

Scottish author

From: Henry Wadworth Longfellow (1807-1882), American poet:

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Book of beginnings, Story without End,

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

6. Part VI: The people born in the second part of 19th century

and 20th century

From: George Augustus Moore (1852-1933), Irish novelist, to

the present time

From Helen Keller (1880-1968), American author:

I believe that God is in me as the sun in the color and fragrance

of a flower—the light in my darkness, the Voice in my Silence.

From: Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961), Swedish statesman,

secretary-general of the United Nations (1953-1961), and the

Nobel Peace Prize winner (1961).

Pray that your loneliness may spur into finding something to live

for, great enough to die for.

7. Part VII: Anonymous section is arranged alphabetically and

consists of 193 quotations

Selected quotation:

Books are keys to wisdom’s treasure.

Books are gates to lands of pleasure.

Books are paths that upward lead.

Books are friends. Come let us read.

Don’t sneer at the man who is down today—unless you have

felt the blow that caused his fall, or felt the pain that only the

fallen know.

8. Part VIII: Comprehensive glossary is 34 pages, arranged

alphabetically, consists of the short biographies of 61

notables, the description of 30 proper places and the

meaning of difficult words used in the book.

9. Part IX: Names Index: 13 pages, arranged alphabetically.

10. Part X: Detailed Subject Index, 10 pages in two rows,

arranged alphabetically. It helps you easily locate your

favorite topics.

Acknowledgement

The author has used any possible means to collect

quotations for the book: word of the mouth, story

books, literary books, newsletters, magazines, internet,

bulletin boards, Public Events, etc.

The sources used are as the following:

1. Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations comprising

the most excellent and appropriate passages in the old British

poets; with choice and copious selections.

By: Sarah Josepha Hale (Buell) and John F. Addington

By: J.B. Lipington and Company.

Date of publishing: 1864 576 pages.

2. Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book (Containing the Inspired

and Inspiring a lifetime of Discriminating reading for

his own use. By: H. Wise and Company, New York

Date of publishing: 1923 240 pages

3. 20th Century Authors By: Stanley J. Kunitz

Date of publishing: 1942 497 pages

4. 5000 Quotations for all Occasions By: Lewis C. Henry

By: Doubleday and Company, Inc. New York

Date of publishing: 1945 346 pages

5. Pocket Book of Quotations By: Henry Davidoff with

Author and Subject Index in original language

Date of publishing: 1952 480 pages

6. A Treasury of Inspiration By: Ralph L. Woods

By: Thomas Y. Corwell Company New York

Date of publishing: 1953 498 pages

7. Familiar Quotations, 13th and Centennial Edition

By: John Bartlett By: Little Brown and Company

Date of publishing: 1956 1614 pages

8. The Speaker’s Sourcebook of 4000 Quotations, Poems,

Anecdotes . . . By Eleanor L. Doan By: Zonderan

Publishing Company, Michigan

Date of publishing: 1960 304 pages

9. New Treasury of Stories for every Speaking and

Writing Occasion By: Jacob M. Braude

By: Prentice-Hall, Inc., California

Date of publishing: 1962 494 pages

10. The New Dictionary of Thoughts, a Cyclopedia of Quotations

By: Tyron Edwards, C.N. Caterras

Ralf Emerson Browns Standard Book Company

Date of publishing: 1963 794 pages

11. Distilled Wisdom By: Alfred Montapert

By: Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey

Date of publishing: 1964 355 pages

12. The MacMillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and

Famous Phrases, Sixth printing. By Burton Stevenson

By: The MacMillan Co., New York (Formerly entitled

The Home book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases).

Date of publishing: 1966 2957 pages

13. Lifetime Speaker’s Encyclopedia, Volume 1

By Jacob M. Braude, 8th Printing By: Prentice Hall, Inc.,

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Date of publishing: July 1968 620 pages

14. The Instant Dictionary of Quotations

By: Corrier Institute, Inc.

Date of publishing: 1972 320 pages

15. The Crown Treasury of Relevant Quotations

By: Edward F. Murphy By: Crown Publishers,

New York Date of publishing: 1978 685 pages

16. Who Said that? By Renee Gee By: David and

Charles Company, London Date of publishing: 1980

ISBN: 0-7153-8085-0 64 pages

17. 3500 Good Quotations for Speakers

By: Gerald L. Lieberman By: Doubleday Co., Inc.

New York

Date of publishing: 1983 285 pages

18. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3rd Edition

By: Oxford University Press

Date of publishing: 1980 907 pages

19. 2715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers

By Edward F. Morphy By: Crown Publishers, Inc. N.Y.

Date of publishing: 1981 ISBN: 0-115-542811 216 pages

20. The Dictionary of Essential Quotations

By: Kevin Goldstein-Jackson By: Croom Helen, London

Date of publishing: 1983 ISBN: 0-389-20393-9 1844 pages

21. The Harper Religious and Inspirational Quotations

Companion By: Margaret Pepper

By: Harper and Row Publishers, Philadelphia

Date of publishing: 1989 496 pages

22. The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations

By: Tony Augrade By: Oxford University Press, New York

Date of publishing: 1991 371 pages

23. The Treasury of Religious Quotations (Words to Live By)

By: Rebecca Davis and Susan Menser

By: The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. Pleasantville, N. Y.

Date of publishing: 1994 ISBN: 0-89577-549-2 640 pages

24. Will Rogers Speaks By: Bryan B. Sterling

By: M. Evans Co., Inc.

Date of publishing: 1995 ISBN: 0-87131-771-0 331 pages

25. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Revised 4th Edition)

By: Angela Partington, New York

Date of publishing: 1996 1075 pages

26. The Concise Dictionary of Foreign Quotations

By: Antony Lejeune By: Stacy, London

Date of publishing: 1998 ISBN: 0-535-3300-01 330 pages

27. The Treasury of Religious Verse By: Donald T. Kaufman

By: Fleming H. Revell Company No date of publishing

371 pages

Encyclopedias used:

1. Brittnica Micropaedia 32 volumes, 2005

2. Encyclopedia Americana 30 volumes, 2002

3. New Standard Encyclopedia 20 volumes, 1999

4. Collier’s Encyclopedia 20 volumes, 1995

5. Encyclopedia Americana 33 volumes, 2007

6. Dictionary of Literary Biography Gale Research Company, 1992, 186 volumes

7. Academic American Encyclopedia 20 volumes, 1996

8. The Universal Standard Encyclopedia, 25 volumes, 1957

9. Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, 247 volumes, 1981

Abbreviations

Part I

Born: B. C.

(Before Christ)

From:

Homer (9th Century B. C.)

To:

Seneca (4 B. C.)

(1) Homer

(fl. 9th or 8th century B. C.)

B. Ionia (now in Turkey)

Greek poet, one of the greatest and most influential writers of all time. The name given to the presumed author of two masterpieces of Greek literature, the Iliad and Odyssey, from which all Western literature has developed. Nothing of the poet’s personality or private life intrudes in the purely narrative epics, so they provide no clues. An ancient Greek historian Herodotus said Homer lived about 850 B. C. At least seven ancient cities claim to be his birthplace. Smyrna, in what is now Turkey, is considered the most likely. Homer was blind. With a little plausibility, the poem, ‘The Battle of the Frogs and Mice’ is attributed to Homer. Also doubtful is the claim that he wrote a group of poems, the so-called ‘Homeric Hymns’, addressed to the gods.

Jove fix’d it certain that whatever day makes man a

slave, takes half his worth away.

Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies;

And sure he will: for Wisdom never lies.

He ceas’d; but left so pleasing on their ear

His voice, that list’ning still they seem’d to hear.

The leader, mingling with the vulgar host,

Is in the common mass of matter lost.

True friendship’s laws by this rule express’d,

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

He serves me most, who serves his country best.

She took him in her fragrant bosom, smiling

through her tears.

(2) Hesiod

(fl.c. 700 B. C.) Greek poet.

B. Ascra, Boetia

One of the earliest Greek poets, he is often called the father of Greek didactic poetry. Works and Days gives advice on farming, managing a household, and choosing a wife. A section of ‘Five Ages of Man’ deplores a steady decline in mankind’s morals. ‘Theogony’ gives an account of the origin of the world and the birth of the gods. It is a source for early Greek mythology. The Works and Days is generally considered to consist of two originally distinct poems, one exalting honest labor and denouncing corrupt and unjust judges. It gives an invaluable picture of the Greek village community in the eighth century B. C.

Do not let your face put your heart to shame.

Works and Days

A man wins nothing better than a good wife, and

nothing worse than a bad one, who roasts her man

without fire, strong though he may be, and bring

to a raw old age.

Between us and Virtue the gods placed sweat: long

and steep is the path that leads to her; but when a

man has reached the top, then is she easy to reach.

Man’s chiefest treasure is a sparing tongue.

He harms himself who does harm to another, and

the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.

(3) Aesop (Aesopus)

(6th century B. C.)

B. Greece

Legendary Greek fabulist. Herodotus identifies that Aesop was a slave on the island of Samos. He was apparently freed by his master. Most of the tales are about animals with human traits. They are simple, short, and direct. Their purpose always is to illustrate some human folly, frailty, vice, or virtue. This intent is made plain by an appended moral. Most of the stories are believed to have been folk fables current in ancient Greece at the time Aesop is supposed to have lived. Aesop’s fables have been translated into many languages and have supplied subjects for countless poems, short stories, and pictures. His works: The Fox and the Grapes; The Dog in the Manger; The Tortoise and the Hare; and The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg.

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.

The Fox and the Mask

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.

The Wolf and the Kid

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks

the truth.

United we stand, divided we fall.

The Four Oxen and the Lion

Please all, and you will please none.

The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.

(4) Heraclitus Ephesus

(c. 535-475 B. C.)

B. Ephesus

D. Anatolia

Greek philosopher known as ‘the Obscure’. His ideas influenced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. He seems to have written only one work, which apparently consisted of disconnected aphorisms. About 135 fragments have survived. He is popularly associated with the ideas that the only unchanging feature of the universe is its changefulness and that the basic material of which everything is composed is fire. Individual opinions diverge and sense impressions are relative. His notion that universal reason is accessible to men may have inspired Socrates. The Doctrine of the Logos was further developed among the Stoics, Neoplatonists, and Christians.

There is nothing permanent except change.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Much knowledge of things divine escapes us

through want of faith.

You can’t step twice into the same river.

(5) Aeschylus

(525-456 B. C.)

B. Eleusis, near Athens D. Gala, Sicily

Greek tragic dramatist, he is frequently called the ‘Father of tragic drama.’ His plays are marked by a strong moral scene, demonstrating that suffering is the inevitable consequence of sin until the wrongdoing has been expiated. His plays, written in verse, are noted for lofty eloquence and magnificent descriptions. He enriched the drama with his technical innovations. He is believed to have written 90 or more plays, but only 7 have survived. He served in the Athenian Army in the war against Persia. Oresteia trilogy (458 B. C.) is generally regarded as his most ambitious work. Other works: The Persians (427 B.C.); The Suppliants (c. 463 B.C.); Seven Against Thebes (467 B.C.) and Prometheus Bound (c. 460-456

B. C.).

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man,

but the man the oath.

O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,

To come to me: of cureless ills thou art

The one physician. Pain lays not its touch

Upon a corpse.

A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.

I would far rather be ignorant than wise in

the foretelling of trouble.

(6) Pindar

(c. 522 B. C.-c. 438 B. C.)

B. Thebes, Boetia, Greece.

D. Argos, Greece

Greek writer of odes, was regarded by the ancient Greeks as the greatest of their lyric poets. He began his study of poetry in nearby Thebes, but he was soon sent to Athens for further learning. He achieved wide reputation while he was still a young man, and his skill won him commissions from prominent families throughout Greece. His odes celebrated victories in games held at the great religious festivals of Greece, the Olympians, the Pythians, the Isthmians, and the Nemeans—and from these festivals the four books of Pindaric Odes take their names. The triumph of the athlete or his sponsor becomes the springboard for magnetic flights of poetic fancy and vivid projections of the poet’s religious, moral, or aesthetic insights.

My soul, do not seek immortal life, but exhaust

the realm of possible.

Not every truth is the better for showing its face

undisguised; and often silence is the wisest thing

for a man to heed.

It is easy, even for the feeble, to shake a city down,

but it is a sore task to set it up again.

To the first discoverer belongs all the fame.

Right it were, fond heart, to cull love’s blossom

in due season.

(7) Sophocles

(c.496-406 B. C.)

B. Colonus, near Athens D. Athens

One of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece. He was a musician as well as a writer and also won acclaim as an athlete. His plays were notable for their suspenseful, complex plots and for dialogue that is appropriate to his characters. Writing with restraint and simplicity, yet expressing deep and often violent emotion, Sophocles represents the best of classic art. He is credited with several innovations. One was the introduction of a third actor and breaking up the tragic trilogy. He made each of his tragedies a separate and complete drama. He wrote over 100 plays, of which only 7 have survived in complete form. Other plays: Ajax; Antigone (c. 441 B. C.); Electra; Oedipus the King (his masterpiece); The Women of Trachis; and Oedipus at Colonus (606 B. C.).

A woman’s vows I write upon the wave.

Prophets are all money-getting tribe.

Sleep, thou patron of mankind,

Great physician of the mind,

Who dost nor pain nor sorrow know,

Sweetest balm of every woe.

Better far is Opportunity, seized at the lucky hour,