Seven Sages (attributed): Precepts of the Seven Sages (Sosiades)

The Precepts of the Seven Sages is a list of short moral commands preserved by Stobaeus in his Anthology under the name of Sosiades, who is otherwise unknown. Some one hundred and fifty maxims of two or three words each, such as follow God, obey the law, respect your parents, nothing in excess and control your anger, are ascribed as a group to the Seven Sages by tradition.

The list is closely related to the Delphic maxims, which were displayed at Apollo's sanctuary and copied as far away as Central Asia. It offers a compact summary of traditional Greek ethics, covering piety, family duty, friendship, self-restraint and civic loyalty, and is an easy and rewarding text for readers learning Greek.