“We men are wretched things.”

“All things are in the hand of heaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove's daughters, shuts men's eyes to their destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them.”

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

“What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles, when it is their own transgressions which bring them suffering that was not their destiny.”

“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they saythat we devise their misery. But theythemselves- in their depravity- designgrief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”

“Upon my word, just see how mortal men always put the blame on us gods! We are the source of evil, so they say - when they have only their own madness to think if their miseries are worse than they ought to be.”

“The lord of distant archery, Apollo,answered: "Lord of earthquake, sound of mindyou could not call me if I strove with youfor the sake of mortals, poor things that they are.Ephemeral as the flamelike budding leaves,men flourish on the ripe wheat of the grainland,then in spiritless age they waste and die.”