Even God lends a hand to honest boldness.

This maxim is attributed to Menander, the Athenian playwright of New Comedy, whose works circulated widely in antiquity and were later mined for sententiae (pithy moral sayings). The line survives not as a securely placed moment in a fully preserved play, but through later quotation and anthologizing—typical of Menander’s afterlife, since much of his corpus was lost for centuries and known largely via fragments and gnomological collections. In that tradition, the saying functions as practical ethical counsel: in situations requiring initiative and risk, upright courage is imagined as attracting divine favor, reflecting a common Greek moral-religious assumption that the gods support just action rather than mere recklessness.

The maxim links human agency with divine favor: bold action is not praised indiscriminately, but specifically when it is “honest” (i.e., just, honorable, or in good faith). Menander suggests that moral courage aligns a person with the order of things, so that what looks like “luck” or “help from above” tends to accompany principled initiative. The line also functions as practical counsel: hesitation and timidity forfeit opportunities, while forthright action—tempered by ethical intent—creates conditions in which assistance (social, circumstantial, or providential) becomes possible. It is an ancient formulation of the idea that fortune favors the brave, with an added moral qualifier.