Pindar (c.518–c.438 BCE) was a Greek lyric poet. He is famous for his odes (the Epinikia,) which celebrate victories in athletic contests at Olympia and elsewhere and relate them to religious and moral themes. His work is the best-preserved of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece.
Born near Thebes, Boeotia, Greece, Pindar began his career as a composer of choral odes at 20, with a song of victory still extant (‘Pythian Ode X,’ written 498 BCE.) He composed odes for the tyrants of Syracuse and Macedonia and the free cities of Greece.
Pindar wrote hymns to the gods, paeans, dithyrambs, odes for processions, mimic dancing songs, pleasant songs, hymns, and odes praising princes. Of all these poems, only fragments are extant, but his Epinikia (‘Triumphal Odes’) can be read in their entirety. They are divided into four books, celebrating the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Pindar
The test of any man lies in action.
—Pindar
Topics: Secrets of Success, Action
Learn what you are and be such.
—Pindar
Topics: Being Ourselves, Realization, Self-Knowledge, Acceptance, Awareness, Self-love
The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.
—Pindar
Topics: Wisdom
Time, in the turning-over of days, works change for better or worse.
—Pindar
Topics: Patience, Resilience, Change
Men are the dreams of a shadow.
—Pindar
Topics: Men
The present will not long endure.
—Pindar
Topics: Difficulty
Not every truth is the better for showing its face undisguised; and often silence is the wisest thing for a man to heed.
—Pindar
Topics: Truth
Whatever is beautiful is beautiful by necessity.
—Pindar
Topics: Beauty
Skills vary with the man. We must … strive by that which is born in us.
—Pindar
Topics: Work, Talents, Abilities
Custom is the universal sovereign.
—Pindar
Topics: Custom
Every gift, though it be small, is in reality great if given with affection.
—Pindar
Topics: Affection, Gift, Gifts
Even now I am full of hope, but the end lies in God.
—Pindar
There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future. Hanging impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes.
—Pindar
Topics: Acceptance
A graceful and honorable old age is the childhood of immortality.
—Pindar
Topics: Aging, Age
May God … let me strive for attainable things.
—Pindar
Topics: Awareness, Acceptance, Realization, Realistic Expectations, Expectations
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Euripides Ancient Greek Dramatist
Homer Ancient Greek Poet
Protagoras Ancient Greek Philosopher
Heraclitus Ancient Greek Philosopher
Herodotus Ancient Greek Historian
Hippocrates Ancient Greek Physician
Archilochus Greek Poet
Anaxagoras Greek Philosopher
Sophocles Ancient Greek Dramatist
Hesiod Greek Poet