Composers From Greece

"I don't dwell in the past; I don't wallow in old events and emotions. I don't waste time on regret. No use going over and over the details of what already happened."

"You do good work for a long-enough time, I believed, and you'd get noticed."

"I believe we're responsible for everything that happens to us."

"All you need is passion. If you have a passion for something, you'll create the talent."

"Passion is the fuel."

"Sometimes the knowledge you've been given in school or by an elder - "this is just the way it is" - keeps you from accomplishing because it traps you in a box in your mind and limits your freedom to deliver."

"I believed that anything was possible, or at least because I didn't put together everyone else's "facts" and believe that winning was impossible."

"Endurance is mind over matter."

"I don't have a "you can't do this" voice in my head."

"The engaged mind stays sharp and retains tremendous capacity."

"You have to give up some of the old so that you can make room for the new."

"These changes are part of what keeps me interested and excited. Life won't let me keep coming at it from the same angle."

"If my music can change someone's mood for the better even a little bit, that's amazing."

"I was tough on myself because I feared being a lazy procrastinator and the inevitable result: being mediocre or second best. I always went the extra mile."

"I'd decided to take the risk, and either I'd succeed or else."

"Taking responsibility gives me a sense of control."

"I think we have much more to say about what happens to us than most people believe."

"It's a cliché - but true - that life is not a dress rehearsal. You get to do it once, so do it well."

"It seems that in every culture, however tough life is and however impossible the conditions, there are some resilient human beings who find their way through, who survive and make something of themselves."

"All I had to do was do it."

"I've always lived in the moment."

"Being happy with less is what makes a great human being, not a big house with marble floors, or everyone knowing who you are."

"Nobody could believe in me the way I believed in myself."

"Stanley Lombardo, Sappho: Poems and Fragments (Hackett Publishing, 2002)"

"Immortal Aphrodite of the shimmering throne, daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee crush not my spirit with anguish and distress, O Queen. But come hither if ever before thou didst hear my voice afar, and hearken, and leaving the golden house of thy father, camest with chariot yoked, and swift birds drew thee, their swift pinions fluttering over the dark earth, from heaven through mid-space. Quickly they arrived; and thou blessed one with immortal countenance smiling didst ask: What now is befallen me and why now I call and what I in my heart’s madness, most desire. What fair one now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee Sappho? For even if she flies she shall soon follow and if she rejects gifts, shall soon offer them and if she loves not shall soon love, however reluctant. Come I pray thee now and release me from cruel cares, and let my heart accomplish all that it desires, and be thou my ally."

"Come hither from Crete to this holy temple, where is your graceful grove of apple-trees, and altars smoking with frankincense. In it cool water sounds through apple-boughs; all the place is shadowed with roses, and from the quivering leaves sleep comes down. In it a meadow blossoms with spring flowers, where horses pasture, and there the breezes breathe sweetly....There, Cyprian, take chaplets and pour softly in gold cups nectar mingled with our feasting."

"Some say cavalry and others claim infantry or a fleet of long oars is the supreme sight on the black earth. I say it isthe one you love. And easily proved. Didn't Helen, who far surpassed all mortals in beauty, desert the best of men, her king,and sail off to Troy and forget her daughter and her dear parents? Merely Aphrodite's gaze made her readily bend and led her farfrom her path. These tales remind me now of Anaktoria who isn't here, yet I for onewould rather see her warm supple step and the sparkle in her face than watch all the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored in glittering bronze."

"Look at him, just like a god, that man sitting across from you, whoever he is, listening to your close, sweet voice, your irresistible laughter And O yes, it sets my heart racing— one glance at you and I can't get any words out, my voice cracks, a thin flame runs under my skin, my eyes go blind, my ears ring, a cold sweat pours down my body, I tremble all over, turn paler than grass."

"The stars hide away their shining form around the lovely moon when in all her fullness she shines (over all) the earth."

"Eros has shaken my mind, wind sweeping down the mountain on oaks."

"I loved you, Atthis, once, long, long ago... You seemed to me a small, ungainly child."

"A handsome man guards his image a while; a good man will one day take on beauty."

"But thou shalt ever lie dead, nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria; but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting among the shadowy dead."

"Of course I am downcast and tremble with pity for my state when old age and wrinkles cover me,when Eros flies about and I pursue the glorious young. Pick up your lyreand sing to us of her who wears violets on her breasts. Sing especially of her who is wandering."

"O dream on your black wings you come when I am sleeping.Sweet is the god but still I am in agony and far from my strength.for I had hope (none now) to share something of the blessed gods,nor was I so foolish as to scorn pleasant toys.Now may I have all these things."

"Do thou, O Dica, set garlands upon thy lovely hair, weaving sprigs of dill with thy delicate hands; for those who wear fair blossoms may surely stand first, even in the presence of Goddesses who look without favour upon those who come ungarlanded."

"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.""

"Sweet mother, I truly cannot weave my web; for I am o’erwhelmed through Aphrodite with love of a slender youth."

"Like the sweet apple reddening on the topmost branch, the topmost apple on the tip of the branch, and the pickers forgot it, well, no, they didn't forget, they just couldn't reach it."

"As the hyacinth which the shepherd tramples on the hill Lies upon the ground and lying bloometh purple still."

"Virginity, virginity, when you leave me, where do you go? I am gone and never come back to you. I never return."

"Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet."

"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleïs the belovedest, above whom I [prize] nor all Lydia nor lovely [Lesbos]."

"The lovely-voiced harbinger of Spring, the nightingale."

"If you are my friend, stand up before me and scatter the grace that's in your eyes."

"Evening, thou that bringest all that bright morning scattered; thou bringest the sheep, the goat, the child back to her mother."

"Neither honey nor bee for me."

"When wrath runs rampage in your heart you must hold still that rambunctious tongue!"

"The moon has set, And the Pleiades. Midnight. The hour has gone by. I sleep alone."

"To have beauty is to have only that, but to have goodness is to be beautiful too."