Agathon

Agathon (Greek Ἀγάθων) (c. 448–400 BCE) was an Athenian tragic poet and friend of Euripides.

Quotes

• μόνου γὰρ αὐτοῦ καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται,
  ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ᾽ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα.
  • Even God cannot change the past.
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, sect. 2, 1139b.
  • Variant translation: Not even the gods can change the past.

• Art loves chance, and chance loves art.
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, sec. 4, 1140a.

• It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.
  • Aristotle, Poetics, XXV, quoted by George Eliot in an epigraph to Chapter 41 of Daniel Deronda.

• Every ruler must remember three things. Firstly, that he rules man; secondly, that he rules according to law, and thirdly, that he does not rule for ever.
  • Stobaeus, Florilegium, XL, VI, 24, as reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of Quotations (1897), p. 515.