Top 15 Archilochus of Paros Quotes

Ancient Greek lyric poet

Archilochus [Ἀρχίλοχος] (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC), also rendered as Archilochos or Arkhilokhus, was a Greek lyric poet and mercenary from the island of Paros in the Archaic period.

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Native Name: Ἀρχίλοχος

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We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength, up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears. Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show, nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry. Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you give away to sorrow. All your life is up-and-down like this.

I have a high art: I hurt with cruelty those who would wound me.

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one, but that is the best of all.

In the hospitality of war we left them their dead to remember us by.

Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down by a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round.

The fox knows many tricks; the hedgehog one good one.

The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one. One good one.

This wheatless island stands like a donkey's back.
It bristles with a tangle of wild woodland.
Oh,
there is no country so beautiful,
no sensual earth that keys my passion
as these plains around the river Siris.

Her breasts and her dark hair were perfume
and even an old man would desire her.

Let the gods take care of everything. Many times
they resurrect a man whom disaster left lying
face down on the black earth. Many times they topple
a man and pin him, back to the soil, though he
was solid on his feet. A multitude of evils
batters him as he wanders hungry and mad.

The fox has many tricks, and the hedgehog only one, but that is the best of all

There’s one big thing I know, to pay back injury done to me with terrible injuries.

"Old women should not seek to be perfumed" (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, first ebook edition, 2014)

Top 15 Archilochus of Paros Quotes

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