Quotes by Sappho

“When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me, and a trembling seizes me all over”

“Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.”

“What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.”

“Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.”

“Death must be an Evil - and the gods agree; for why else would they live for ever?”

“When anger spreads through the breath, guard thy tongue from barking idly”

“How love the limb-loosener sweeps me away”

“Death is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die”

yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful thingsand your tongue were not concocting some evil to sayshame would not hold down your eyesbut rather you would speak about what is just

their heart grew coldthey let their wings down

In fact she herself once blamed meKyprogeneiabecause I prayed this word:I want.

Eros, again now, the loosener of limbs troubles me,Bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable creature….

]Sardisoften turning her thoughts here]you like a goddessand in your song most of all she rejoiced.But now she is conspicuous among Lydian womenas sometimes at sunsetthe rosyfingered moonsurpasses all the stars. And her lightstretches over salt seaequally and flowerdeep fields.And the beautiful dew is poured outand roses bloom and frailchervil and flowering sweetclover.But she goes back and forth rememberinggentle Atthis and in longingshe bites her tender mind

]sing to usthe one with violets in her lap]mostly]goes astray

...gracious your form and your eyes as honey : desire is poured upon your lovely face Aphrodite has honored you exceedingly...

There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.

Wealth without virtue is no harmless neighbor.

The touched heart madly stirs,your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles - every gesture is a proclamation,every sound is speech...

Someone will remember us I sayEven in another time

The evening starIs the mostbeautifulof all stars