WIST Quotations

Euripides -- Hecuba [Hekabe; Ἑκάβη], l. 1028ff (c. 424 BC) [tr. @sentantiq (2020)]

Dave — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:22:14 +0000

CHORUS:The meeting place
Of debt to Justice and to the gods
Is a terrible, terrible place.

ΧΟΡΟΣ:[τὸ γὰρ ὑπέγγυον
Δίκᾳ καὶ θεοῖσιν οὐ συμπίτνει:
ὀλέθριον ὀλέθριον κακόν.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Hecuba [Hekabe; Ἑκάβη], l. 1028ff (c. 424 BC) [tr. @sentantiq (2020)]
(Source)

To Polymestor as he unknowingly goes to suffer Hecuba's bloody vengeance.

(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:

For twofold ruin doth impend
O'er him who human laws pursue,
And righteous Gods indignant view.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]

For where the rites of hospitality coincide with justice, and with the Gods, on the villain who dares to violate these destructive, destructive indeed impends the evil.
[tr. Edwards (1826)]

For wherever it cometh to pass that the rightful demand
Of justice's claim and the laws of the Gods be at one,
Then is ruinous bane for the sinner, O ruinous bane!
[tr. Way (Loeb) (1894)]

When the Gods and Justice meet,
And the Pledge that is forfeited,
The end is Ruin.
[tr. Sheppard (1924)]

For the rights of justice and of the gods do not fall together; there is ruin full of death and doom.
[tr. Coleridge (1938)]

Justice and the gods
exact the loan at last.
[tr. Arrowsmith (1958)]

When the gods call in their debt
and Justice wants your scalp as well,
better for you if you were dead
as your life will be one long hell.
[tr. Harrison (2005)]

Because when Justice and Heaven are both transgressed, there will be doom. Doom and more doom!
[tr. Theodoridis (2007)]

Where justice and the gods converge, there’s a maelstrom.
[tr. Karden/Street (2011)]

Ibn Ezra, Abraham -- Sefer ha-Yashar (c. 1160)

Dave — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 22:19:55 +0000

A little sin is a big sin when committed by a big man.

Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) Spanish Jewish poet, philosopher, Biblical exegete [ר׳ אַבְרָהָם בֶּן מֵאִיר אִבְּן עֶזְרָא‎]
Sefer ha-Yashar (c. 1160)

Commentary on Genesis 32.9. Alternate translation:

Therefore, a minor sin committed by a great personality is considered a major transgression.
[tr. Strickman and Silver (1988)]

Twain, Mark -- Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no mater, it will be inflicted, just the same.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]
(Source)

Commenting on the eviction of Maxim Gorky from multiple hotels in New York City because the woman he was traveling with was not his wife. Twain was a supporter of Gorky's efforts to foment revolution in Tsarist Russia.

The essay was not published in Twain's lifetime. It's original publication was in the Slavonic and East European Review (1944-08), also edited by DeVoto.