I’m looking for a page of famous Ancient Greek quotations, in particular ones with a fairly positive tone. I’m using a series of such phrases with Latin ones as decoration around the perimetre of the ceiling of my apartment’s living room — For anyone who’s been in the Vatican, that’s where I got the idea.
I’m not sure the Ancient Greeks had discovered positive thinking. All the good quotes I can recite from memory are rather hard-edged. However, we have collections of proverbs and sententiae that might provide some good material, such as Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum or Gnomologium Baroccianum.
If you feel like browsing through some books, here are two I know about:
Greek wit; a collection of smart sayings and anecdotes by F. A. Paley
Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) By Thomas Benfield Harbottle
The first has generally longer quotes (all in translation but with citations to the original) that aren’t quite as witty as the title of the book implies and which probably don’t lend themselves all that well to being painted around your poor unsuspecting landlord’s ceiling (just kidding), but the second has much briefer and pithier ones (latin in the first half of the book, greek in the second).
When you do find the quotes you like, let us know what you pick.
Thanks guys, I appreciate it a lot.
Heh — not to be painted, but merely printed and taped with dutiful diligence.