**“While you live, keep learning. Do not wait for old age to bring you wisdom”;

“I grow old, but I am always learning much everywhere…”; ** “When you are placed in power, do not keep cunning men in office beside you, for whatever they do wrong will be blamed on you as their superior”;

“Only take power into your hands once you have learned to obey”;

“Laws are like cobwebs: if something weak and light falls into them, they hold it; if it is something big, it breaks through and escapes”;

“Reprove a friend in private, praise him in public”;

“Make friends slowly, and do not reject the friends you have made”;

“From wealth comes satiety, and from satiety comes arrogance (haughtiness, conceit)”;

“Do not take what you did not put there”. (Solon (640/635 – 559 BC) was an Athenian politician, lawgiver and poet, one of the “Seven Sages” of Ancient Greece.)

Solon came from the noble Codrid family, which had once been a royal dynasty. Solon was the first Athenian poet. When he was elected eponymous archon for 594/593 BC, he was given extraordinary powers. He carried out a series of reforms — including the seisachtheia, the property qualification, and the establishment of the jury court and the Council of Four Hundred, among others — which mark a crucial era in the formation of the Athenian state.

After his archonship Solon travelled to various regions of the Eastern Mediterranean. Once his travels were over, he no longer took an active part in political life. Solon died in 559 BC in Athens.