34 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 34 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 36 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the hardest thing to govern is not your world, but your own anger, hunger and tongue?
The Sentences of Sextus is a collection of brief sayings about how a wise person thinks, speaks, eats, owns things and prays. Its author is unknown. Drawing on Pythagorean thought and early Christian teaching, it presents the sage as both wise and faithful, seeking a calm, disciplined, God-centred life.
There is no plot to follow and no long argument to untangle. Instead, each instruction asks you to pause over a choice: whether to speak, how to handle anger, what to keep and what to release. Its central concerns include self-mastery, truthful speech, possessions, the body and the spiritual ideal of becoming like God.
What you’ll discover
- Mastery begins within Explore teachings that locate the deepest struggle in anger, greed and the passions.
- The weight of words Consider why these sayings treat speech as a power that can build or ruin.
- A lighter hold Reflect on warnings about possessions and the heart’s attachment to things that cannot last.
- Wisdom joined to faith Meet the ideal of a sage whose discipline belongs to a life centred on God.
- One saying at a time Pause over brief instructions on eating, praying and the choices that shape a disciplined life.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy proverbs, ancient philosophy, early Christian spirituality, or practical guidance on speech, generosity and self-mastery.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Greek handbook that Christians made their own
- Love the truth and choose your moment
- Be careful when you speak about God
- The wise person grows close to God
- The body is a garment and the soul is free
- Give freely and harm no one
- How these sayings have been read and valued
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The Sentences of Sextus
by Attributed to Sextus · 180
A tyrant can seize your body but never your speech, says an ancient book of sayings written for the wise.
Easy readUnder 2 hours to readEnglish
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“Love the truth, and treat lies like poison.”
In short
Imagine a teacher who hands you a small set of sentences, each short enough to learn by heart, and says they are enough to shape a whole life. Would you believe it?
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Listen freeFrom the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Greek handbook that Christians made their own
The Sentences of Sextus is a collection of short maxims that began in the Greek-speaking world. Scholars broadly agree that its core comes from a Pythagorean source, put together in the second or third century. The compiler's name is not known. The name Sextus stuck to the collection, and nobody can say who that man was.
That age was restless. Educated people were becoming less attached to the traditional civic faiths of Greece and Rome. Many movements competed for people who wanted something more personal than public ritual. They shared a belief that the deepest human problem is interior. It is a gap between the self as it is and the self as it could be.
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A tyrant can seize your body but never your speech, says an ancient book of sayings written for the wise.
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Details
- First published
- 180
- Language
- English
- Listening time
- 34 min
- Level
- Easy read
- Paperback
- 36 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 36 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
- Large print hardcover
- 36 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
- Delivery and returns
- Printed when you order. Usually here in 12 to 14 days.Arrives Fri 13 Nov to Thu 19 Novto United States, printed for you at cost
For Christmas, order by Thu 12 Nov
Cite this edition
Sextus. The Sentences of Sextus. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-the-sentences-of-sextus.
Sextus. (2026). The sentences of Sextus. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-the-sentences-of-sextus (Original work published ca. 180)
Sextus. The Sentences of Sextus. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-the-sentences-of-sextus.
@book{sextus2026sentences,
author = {Sextus},
title = {The Sentences of Sextus},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-the-sentences-of-sextus},
note = {First published ca. 180}
}
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What is The Sentences of Sextus about?
It is a collection of short moral sayings on truth, careful speech, the wise person, the body and the soul, death, giving to the needy and becoming like God. Each saying stands alone and invites reflection.
Who was Sextus, and who wrote the Sentences?
No one knows for certain. Scholars think a Greek compiler in a Pythagorean tradition gathered the core in the second or third century, and Christian editors adapted it. Rufinus linked it to Pope Sixtus II, but scholars reject that.
Is The Sentences of Sextus a Christian or a pagan text?
It is both. Its roots lie in Greek Pythagorean moral teaching, and Christian editing shaped the form that early readers received. That blend lets readers of many backgrounds find something that speaks to them.
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