Chilon of Sparta

Chilon (fl. 555 BC) was a Spartan politician reckoned one of the seven wise men.

Quotes
According to Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Chilo, the Spartan sage, these sentences said:
 * Seek no excess﻿—all timely things are good.
 * Suretyship, and then destruction.

He wrote: Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard, Which gives a certain proof of purity; And gold itself acts as the test of men, By which we know the temper of their minds.

He advised:
 * To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick.
 * To be more prompt to go to one’s friends in adversity than in prosperity.
 * To make but a moderate display at one’s marriage.
 * Not to speak evil of the dead.
 * To honor old age.﻿
 * To keep a watch upon oneself.﻿
 * To prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one’s whole life.﻿
 * Not to laugh at a person in misfortune.﻿
 * If one is strong to be also merciful, so that one’s neighbors may respect one rather than fear one.﻿
 * To learn how to regulate one’s own house well.﻿
 * Not to let one’s tongue outrun one’s sense.﻿
 * To restrain anger.﻿
 * Not to dislike divination.﻿
 * Not to desire what is impossible.﻿
 * Not to make too much haste on one’s road.﻿
 * When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman.﻿
 * To obey the laws.﻿
 * To love quiet.

to Periander:
 * a sole governor is in a slippery position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house.

He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one:
 * The reason is because I know how to bear injustice, but you do not.

Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said: Having had the question put to him, “What was difficult?” he said: And besides these three things he added further:
 * In good hopes.
 * To be silent about secrets; to make good use of one’s leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice.
 * To rule one’s tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one’s neighbors; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like.

It was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by consideration, was the virtue of a man.

Note

 * Herodotus, i. 59
 * Alcidamas ap. Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 23. 11
 * Diogenes Laërtius, i. 68-73
 * Hammond, N.G.L. & Scullard, H.H. (Eds.) (C.E.1970). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (p.229). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-869117-3.
 * Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (C.E.1911). "Chilon" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 163.
 * Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy: Toilets, Sewers, and Water Systems, The University of North Carolina Press, C.E.2015, p.115: in the original Latin 'Vissire tacite Chilon docuit subdolus.'

Source

 * Franz Kiechle: Chilon. In: Der Kleine Pauly, Bd. 1 (C.E.1964), Sp. 1146.
 * G.L. Huxley. Early Sparta, C.E.1962
 * The Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laërtius
 * Pliny, 7, c. 33

Quotes about
'The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son,' 'The wisest man of all the seven sages.'
 * engraved on his statue