Sappho

Greek lyric poet

Ancient influential 32 sayings

Sayings by Sappho

Truly, I wish I were dead. She was weeping when she left me, and said many things to me, and said this: 'How much we have suffered, Sappho. Truly, I don't want to leave you.'

c. 630-570 BC (original composition) — Fragment 94, as translated by Anne Carson in 'If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho'
Humorous Unverifiable

Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us.

600 BCE — Fragment 147
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

I have no complaint... prosperity that the golden Muses gave me was no delusion: dead, I won't be forgotten.

600 BCE — Fragment 55
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

You burn me.

600 BCE — Fragment 38
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

I don't know what to do: I am of two minds.

600 BCE — Fragment 51
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters!

600 BCE — Fragment 111
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Sweet mother, I cannot weave – slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl.

600 BCE — Fragment 102
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Be kind to me, Gongyla, I ask you...

600 BCE — Fragment 22
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

I would rather see her lovely step and the radiant sparkle of her face than all the chariots of Lydia.

600 BCE — Fragment 16
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, at the very topmost top – the apple-gatherers have forgotten it – no, not forgotten it, but they could not reach it.

600 BCE — Fragment 105A
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

I would not trade my love for all of Lydia.

6th century BCE — Fragment 16, prioritizing personal desire over wealth
Controversial Unverifiable

Once again Love drives me on, that loosener of limbs.

6th century BCE — Fragment 130, describing love as overpowering
Controversial Unverifiable