Solon

Every line we carry

Each one links to its source, what it means, and the shirt in any of our looks.

1. I grow old, always learning.

   Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, said he grew old still learning many things. Plutarch says he kept to this to the end of his life. Age is no excuse to stop; the best people are students until the last day.

   Fragment 18 West, our translation from the Greek

2. I won't trade virtue for wealth. Virtue stays. Money changes hands.

   Solon notes that many bad men are rich and good men poor, but he will not swap his virtue for their wealth, because virtue is steady while money passes from one person to another. Build on what cannot be taken.

   Fragment 15 West, our translation from the Greek

3. No finish line has ever been set for wealth.

   Solon says there is no visible limit to wealth for people: those who have the most strive to double it. If you do not decide what enough is, nothing will ever be enough.

   Fragment 13.71 West, our translation from the Greek

4. In great work it is hard to please everyone.

   After reforming Athens, Solon left the city for ten years to escape complaints, quoting his own line: in great deeds it is hard to please all. Anything big will annoy someone. If no one objects, you probably did not do much.

   Fragment 7 West, our translation from the Greek

5. Every venture carries risk. No one knows where a start will end.

   Solon says danger attends every action and no one knows, at the start, how a thing will turn out. Certainty is not on offer. Begin anyway, with your eyes open.

   Fragment 13.65-66 West, our translation from the Greek

6. You watch the tongue and the clever word. You never watch the deed.

   Solon scolds the Athenians for falling for a smooth talker: they looked at his tongue and his slippery words, never at what he actually did. Judge people by their track record, not their pitch.

   Fragment 11.7-8 West, our translation from the Greek

7. Speech is the image of deeds.

   Diogenes Laertius reports Solon saying that words are the shadow or image of actions. Talk reflects what you do; it cannot replace it. If the deeds are missing, the words are an empty picture.

   Diogenes Laertius 1.58, our translation from the Greek

8. Seal your words with silence, and your silence with timing.

   Solon advised sealing speech with silence and silence with the right moment. Know when to stop talking, and know when to stop being quiet. Both are skills.

   Diogenes Laertius 1.58, our translation from the Greek

9. Learn to obey before you command.

   Among Solon's precepts: rule only after you have learned to be ruled. Good leaders have been good followers. They know from the inside what an order feels like.

   Diogenes Laertius 1.60, our translation from the Greek

10. Advise what is best, not what is pleasant.

    Solon told people to give counsel that is best rather than most pleasing. A friend who only tells you what you want to hear is not advising you. Be the one who says the useful thing.

    Diogenes Laertius 1.60, our translation from the Greek

11. Make friends slowly. Keep the ones you make.

    Solon's advice on friendship: do not acquire friends quickly, and do not reject the ones you have. Take your time choosing, then be loyal.

    Diogenes Laertius 1.60, our translation from the Greek

12. Call no one happy until he dies. Until then, call him lucky.

    In Herodotus, Solon tells the rich king Croesus that a man who ends his life well deserves to be called happy, but until then he should be called fortunate, not happy. Croesus later lost everything and remembered. A good life is judged at the finish line, not the halfway mark.

    Herodotus 1.32.7, our translation from the Greek

13. Look to the end of everything.

    Solon tells Croesus that in every matter you must look to the end and see how it turns out, since the god has shown many men prosperity and then torn them up by the roots. Do not get drunk on a good start. Ask where it leads.

    Herodotus 1.32.9, our translation from the Greek