Hesiod (Greek: H?síodos) was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active around 700 BC. No date before 750 BC or later than 650 BC fits the evidence. Since at least Herodotus's time (Histories, 2.53), Hesiod and Homer have generally been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived, and they are often paired. Scholars disagree about who lived first, and the fourth-century BC sophist Alcidamas' Mouseion even brought them together in an imagined poetic agon, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod. Aristarchus first argued for Homer's priority, a claim that was generally accepted by later antiquity.

Hesiod's writings serve as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought (he is sometimes identified as the first economist), archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping.

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"A bad neighbor is as great a calamity as a good one is a great advantage.""A day is sometimes our mother, sometimes our stepmother.""Acquisition means life to miserable mortals.""Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the larger the load, the greater will be the profit upon profit.""At the beginning of the cask and the end take thy fill but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom the savings comes too late.""Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it.""Bring a wife home to your house when you are of the right age, not far short of 30 years, nor much above; this is the right time for marriage.""But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper.""Do not gain basely; base gain is equal to ruin.""Do not let a flattering woman coax and wheedle you and deceive you; she is after your barn.""False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth.""For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and then again nothing deadlier than a bad one.""Giving is good, but taking is bad and brings death.""Happy is the man whom the Muses love: sweet speech flows from his mouth.""He fashions evil for himself who does evil to another, and an evil plan does mischief to the planner.""He is senseless who would match himself against a stronger man; for he is deprived of victory and adds suffering to disgrace.""How easily some light report is set about, but how difficult to bear.""If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much.""If you should put even a little on a little and should do this often, soon this would become big.""It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.""It is not possible either to trick or escape the mind of Zeus.""It will not always be summer; build barns.""Justice prevails over transgression when she comes to the end of the race.""Mortals grow swiftly in misfortune.""Never make a companion equal to a brother.""Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.""Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.""Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and contrives presumptuous deeds.""Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and the poor have a grudge against the poor, and the poet against the poet.""Preserve the mean; the opportune moment is best in all things.""So the people will pay the penalty for their kings' presumption, who, by devising evil, turn justice from her path with tortuous speech.""The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.""The fool knows after he's suffered.""The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.""Toil is no source of shame; idleness is shame.""Try to take for a mate a person of your own neighborhood.""We know how to speak many falsehoods that resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.""Wealth should not be seized, but the god-given is much better.""When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.""Whoever happens to give birth to mischievous children lives always with unending grief in his spirit and heart.""Whoever has trusted a woman has trusted deceivers.""Whoever, fleeing marriage and the sorrows that women cause, does not wish to wed comes to a deadly old age.""Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace."

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