Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Works and Days

By Hesiod

Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι

A farmer's almanac filled with agricultural techniques as well as wisdom-advice but best known for its accounts of Prometheus and Pandora, for it’s description of the Golden Age and subsequent degenerating time periods, the Myth of Five Ages. Perhaps, as part of the transition from the ancient matriarchies to the modern patriarchal systems in western civilization, Pandora and her “tribe of women“ were sent by the guides as a punishment to mankind because of Prometheus’ theft of fire. In an image parallel to the Sumarian/biblical stories about a garden of Eden, he also describes a golden age of peace and plenty when rivalries were unknown and people didn’t age or suffer.

Quotes from Works and Days

“A man who works evil against another works it really against himself, he's only harming himself who's bent upon harming another”

Chapters:

Themes: Golden Rule

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“Acquisition means life to miserable mortals.”

Chapters:

Themes: Consumerism

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“Badness can be got easily and in shoals; the road to her is smooth, and she lives very near us. But between us and Goodness the gods have placed the sweat of our brows”

Chapters:

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“Do not let any sweet-talking woman beguile your good sense with the fascination of her shape. It's your barn she's after.”

Chapters:

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“Fishes and wild beasts and winged birds should devour one another, since there is no justice in them; but to mankind he gave justice which proves for the best.”

Chapters:

Themes: Justice

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“For a man can win nothing better than a good wife, and nothing more painful than a bad one.”

Chapters:

Themes: Marriage

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“He does mischief to himself who does mischief to another, and evil planned harms the plotter most.”

Chapters:

Themes: Evil

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“It is best to work, at whatever you have a talent for doing, without turning your greedy thought toward what some other man possesses, but take care of your own livelihood… it is from work that men are rich, a working man is much dearer to the immortals.”

Chapters:

Themes: Livelihood

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“No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it too is a kind of divinity.”

Chapters:

Themes: Delusion

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“That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.”

Chapters:

Themes: Contemplation

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“The road to virtue is long and goes steep up hill, hard climbing at first, but the last of it, when you get to the summit (if you get there) is easy going after the hard part.”

Chapters:

Themes: Perseverance

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“When gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
A golden race th' immortals for'd on earth
Of many-languaged men: they lived of old
When Saturn reign'd in heaven, an age of gold.”

Chapters:

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