Plutarch on Solon
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“Wealth I desire to have; but wrongfully to get it, I do not wish. Justice, even if slow, is sure.”
“That city in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.”
“Solon's way of living was expensive and profuse and if in his poems, he speaks of pleasure with more freedom than becomes a philosopher, this is thought to be due to his mercantile life; he encountered many and great dangers, and sought his reward therefor in sundry luxuries and enjoyments.”
“As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change.”