Ancient Greek proverbs: sayings and idioms


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Collection of ancient Greek proverbs, popular sayings and sayings in Greece translated into Italian, as testimony to the wisdom of this people of ancient tradition.


Greek idioms

- Pay attention to your enemies, because they are the first to discover your mistakes.

- A dry bramble cannot be folded.


- Like a god it seems to me that man.

- Bread after bread is also good.

- Man is a miniature world.


- But you don't have to decide on the altar.

- There are many extraordinary things, but there is nothing more extraordinary than man.

- Listen to who has four ears.


- The day sees the actions of the night and laughs.

- A bad man lives long.

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- Listen to the words that come from the heart.

- The ant also has its anger.

- The beginning of wisdom is silence.

- Habit creates almost second nature.

- Facts are fruits, words are leaves.

- The fool understands himself by words, the vessel by sound.

- Wait for the wisest of all the councilors, the weather.


- They asked for buckets and refused tubs.

- Where anger sows, you reap repentance.

- It is not possible to stop a large stone when it has been released from the hand, nor a speech when it has come out of the tongue.

- Many tricks know the fox, only one, but large, the hedgehog.

- A wolf could marry a sheep before certain things happen.

- The chatter, which many people propagate, never perishes completely.


- Empty vessels make a lot of noise.

Greek sayings

- Laziness is the mother of all evils.

- Better to listen than to talk a lot.

- Curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.

- An inappropriate love is no different from hatred.

- Committing the same sin twice is not a sign of wisdom.

- A fish starts to stink from the head.

- Hell, useless to the wise, is necessary for the senseless plebs.

- A flock without a shepherd risks becoming food for wolves.

- If you say what you want, you have to listen in response to what you don't want.

- The eyes are the abode of shame.

- Whoever stops being a friend has never been.


- The tongue for a man is a sharper weapon than the sword.

- A heart that loves is always young.

- Right reasoning takes more grip than sturdy hands.

- You can learn the truth from a child or a madman.

- It is the mind that sees and hears; everything else is deaf and blind.

- When the wine is inside, the words come out.

- When the fire sticks to your neighbor's house, yours is in danger.

- All important things to know are difficult to learn.

- In a moment, we can go from sublime to ridiculous.

- Of all the things that wisdom provides for a happy existence, the greatest is friendship.

- The drowning man clings to his own hair.

- Time is a doctor who heals all ills.


- A lucky person is a person who plants pebbles and collects potatoes.

Greek proverbs

- Water and fire can never mix.

- An orator without judgment is a horse without bridle.

- Favor received, gratitude over.

- Small opportunities are often the start of big businesses.

- The speech is seductive, but the speaker is unreliable.

- Silence is often the wisest of thoughts for man.

- If the lion skin is not enough, put on the fox skin.

- The wise man learns many things from his enemies.

- All men by nature tend to know.

- Power shows man.

- Better to learn late than not to do it at all.


- The centuries copy each other.

- Know yourself.

- Those who can't stand bad luck are really unlucky.

- Everything flows.

- Men make plans and the Gods smile.

- Live hidden.

- The wise man learns many things from his enemies.

- I know that I do not know.

- The illiterate person is like an un-carved piece of wood.

- As you wanted to prove.

- You learn by suffering.

- Life is short, art is long, the passing opportunity, the dangerous experiment.


- Man is by nature a political animal.

- Man is the measure of all things.

Latin Proverbs | Ancient Roman Words of Wisdom (February 2024)


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