The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.

The saying commends moderation and self-knowledge: the “best and safest” course is to keep one’s life in balance rather than be driven to extremes. It also frames wisdom as a double recognition—of forces “around us” (fate, the gods, nature, society) and “in us” (desire, pride, reason, moral capacity). In Euripidean drama, catastrophe often follows when characters deny limits, overreach, or refuse to acknowledge powers beyond their control; the quote distills that tragic lesson into a practical ethic. Read this way, “wisdom” is not mere cleverness but a disciplined stance toward human vulnerability and responsibility.