κοινός ~ κοινοῦ (adj. neut.): common, shared, impartial
βίος ~ βίου (noun m.): life, lifestyle
λόγος ~ λόγου (noun m.): word, speech
τέχνη ~ τέχνης (noun f.): art, skill, craft
ὀπίσω (adverb): back, backwards
These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):
Κοινὸς γίνου.
Ἀνέλπιστον βίον ζῇς.
Λόγος καλὸς ὀστοῦν κατεάξει.
Λιμὴν ἀτυχίας ἐστὶν ἀνθρώποις τέχνη.
Δεῦτε ὀπίσω μου, καὶ ποιήσω ὑμᾶς γενέσθαι ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων.
And now, some commentary:
Κοινὸς γίνου.
Be impartial.
The usual meaning of κοινός is shared or common or public, but it can also have the meaning of impartial, as here, opening yourself up to all sides of a question. This is another one of the so-called Delphic maxims recorded by Stobaeus; see them all here.
Ἀνέλπιστον βίον ζῇς.
You are living the unhoped-for life.
This is an alpha-privative: ἀν-έλπιστος. We have the word "unhoped for" in English which is always positive, but this Greek word is ambiguous: it can mean "unhoped for" but also "hopeless, desperate." The idea here, though, is positive: you are living something like "beyond your wildest dreams," and in a good way.
Λόγος καλὸς ὀστοῦν κατεάξει.
A good word can shatter bone.
The idea here is breaking bones in some aggressive sense; instead, the idea is that a good word — a gentle word, a soft word — can break something that is proverbially hard, like bone, stone, etc. You might understand it as something like "A good word can break a heart of stone" or something like that. This is one of the sayings attributed to Aesop, and the accompanying interpretation refers to softening something λιθώδης, "stony," making the connection between bone and stone.
Λιμὴν ἀτυχίας ἐστὶν ἀνθρώποις τέχνη.
Skill gives people refuge from misfortune.
The word λιμήν literally means a harbor, but it also has the metaphorical meaning of a refuge or a haven, much like "harbor" in English. Being skilled is like a safe port in the storm that is bad luck or misfortune, ἀτυχία. This is another one of the iambic monostichs of Menander:
Λιμὴν | ἀτυχί||ας ἐσ|τὶν ἀν||θρώποις | τέχνη.
Δεῦτε ὀπίσω μου, καὶ ποιήσω ὑμᾶς γενέσθαι ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
This is a line from the Gospel of Mark and also in the Gospel of Matthew; the King James version reads: "Come ye after me, and I will you to become fishers of men." Jesus is speaking to Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew as they are casting a fishing net; they become his disciples: "they forsook their nets and followed him." The phrase has its own article at Wikipedia: Fishers of men.
And here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too:
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