Life & Wisdom Quote by Hesiod

Justice, in Hesiod, is never a courtroom abstraction. She is a runner with stamina, arriving late, bruised, and inevitable. That image matters because it tells you what kind of world he thinks he’s describing: one where wrongdoing can look like victory for a long stretch, where the cheats seem to surge ahead, but where the finish line is rigged by a moral order older than any individual hustle.

The line’s intent is both reassurance and warning. Reassurance for the ordinary farmer Hesiod often champions in Works and Days, stuck watching local “gift-devouring” officials bend judgments. The subtext is: don’t mistake speed for triumph. Transgression has flash; justice has endurance. At the same time it’s a threat aimed upward: you can outrun accountability for a while, but not forever. That “end of the race” isn’t just personal fate; it’s cosmic bookkeeping, the gods’ long memory.

Context sharpens the edge. Hesiod writes at a moment when Greek communities are consolidating law and property, and social trust is fragile. He’s trying to stabilize behavior in a system that can’t reliably police elites. So he recruits narrative gravity: Justice (Dike) is personified, almost bureaucratic, reporting to Zeus, turning private misconduct into a public debt.

It works because it grants patience a backbone. Not passive waiting, but a confidence that time is an instrument of judgment. The sprint can be crooked; the marathon, he insists, belongs to order.