Send a Quote Enter a brief message. SendOk2 “If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.” ~ Solon (c.638 BC-558 BC) Athenian statesman, lawmaker, Lyric poet, renowned as a founding father of the Athenian polis, one of the Seven Sages of GreeceSource: Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 5, p. 25.