'Human wisdom is of little or no value', wrote Plato in his Apology. And yet the ancient Greeks, including Plato himself, more than any other people of antiquity were fascinated by the pursuit of the wisdom they called philosophia. That search for knowledge involved an extensive use of maxims and quotations, as we can see from those expressions of Homer prefaced by the phrase 'as people say'. Homer, the Seven Sages and the Pre-Socratic philosophers are still extensively quoted in all the major western languages. Yet for all their popularity, until now there has been no single resource to which interested readers might turn. This unique reference book offers one of the most comprehensive selections of Greek quotations ever committed to print. With its English text matched by the original Greek, the volume collects 7500 entries, ranging from the archaic period to late antiquity, and across philosophy, drama, poetry, history, science and medicine, each indexed with key words to enable fast sourcing. Together, these selections provide an incomparable insight into the glories of Greek civilization.

'Only god is truly wise: human wisdom is of little or no value', declaimed Plato in his Apology. And yet the ancient Greeks, including Plato himself, more than any other people of antiquity were fascinated by the pursuit of the wisdom they called philosophia. That search for knowledge involved an extensive use of maxims and quotations, as we can see from those expressions of Homer prefaced by the phrase 'as people say'. Classical Greek lore and sagacity have throughout history continued to provide inspiration to figures as diverse as the Church Fathers, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Marx and John F Kennedy. Indeed, Homer, the Seven Sages and the Pre-Socratic philosophers are still extensively quoted in all the major western languages, while the admired sayings of Heraclitus, for instance, are known only through his quotations, his actual writings having long been lost. Yet for all their popularity and ubiquity, until now there has been no single resource for these quotations to which interested readers might turn. This unique and handsome reference book offers one of the most comprehensive selections of Greek quotations ever committed to print. Organised alphabetically, with the original Greek followed by an accompanying English translation, it collects some 7500 entries, ranging from the archaic period to late antiquity, and across philosophy, drama, poetry, history, science and medicine. Containing a full list of translators and of abbreviations, its index of key words enables the fast and efficient sourcing of each entry. This is a handbook designed for years of pleasurable and profitable browsing. Many readers may find that the views expressed twenty centuries ago, and now helpfully contained between one set of covers, are as pertinent and provocative today as they were then.

Combining the convenience of a dictionary with the depth of a history of philosophy, this new reference book fills a great need and should prove exceedinly useful to all students and scholars in classics, philosophy, theology and linguistics. The book defines and translates key terms used by pre-Christian philosophers up to the time of Proclus, with special references to the writings of the philosophers as they developed nuances and new meanings for the terms. Entries are arranged in dictionary style, but a knowledge of Greek is not necessary to use the book, since an English-Greek index provides the reader with Greek equivalents of English terms, with cross-reference to the main text. Its great value is that it isolates terms and allows the reader to follow their individual careers, while at the same time it offers an evolutionary history of the concept instead of a mere definition.