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Ancient Greece Quotes

Browse 84 quotes about Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece Quotes

“The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. 'If I am the wisest man,' said Socrates, 'it is because I alone know that I know nothing.' The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal. Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time. My answer to him was, 'John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

WisdomEarthScienceUniverseUnderstandingKnowledgeIgnoranceTheoryWrongGreeceRelativityScientific TheoryAncient GreeceSocratesFlat Earth
Book:The Relativity of Wrong
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“Greek thought, as Russell states, is full of fate. It can, of course, be argued that these sentiments are the expressions of an archaic culture or world view which died two thousand years ago, prolonged through the medieval epoch because of ignorance of the natural universe, and that we know better now. In one sense this is true, but one of the more important and disturbing insights of depth psychology is the revelation that the mythic and undifferentiated consciousness of our ancestors, which animated the natural world with images of gods and daimones, does not belong to chronological history alone. It also belongs to the psyche of modern man, and represents a stratum which, although layered over by increasing consciousness and the hyper-rationality of the last two centuries, is as potent as it was two millennia or even ten millennia ago.”

GodDestinyPsychologyFateGodsAstrologyPaganFate DestinyAncient Greece
Book:The Astrology of Fate
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“We had old architects and were working with what we had on hand. You’ve hired this new, young architect now, and, Pericles, I’m going to build you a statue of Athena—all gold and ivory, think of that, Pericles—and taller than our city walls.” Pericles raised his eyes toward the birds.”

RomanceDramaConflictEducationalLove StoryInsightfulAncient GreeceGreek GodsIctionSpartans
Book:Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
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“...They never let you be famous and happy.' He lifted an eyebrow. 'I'll tell you a secret.' 'Tell me.' I loved it when he was like this. 'I'm going to be the first.' He took my palm and held it to his. 'Swear it.' 'Why me?' 'Because you're the reason. Swear it.' 'I swear it,' I said, lost in the high colour of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.”

HeroesGreeceAchillesAncient GreeceTroyThe Song Of AchillesAchilles And PatroclusThe Illiad
Book:The Song of Achilles
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“...we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise. Yet, even for us, the word stands for something more than just a fireplace. We speak of 'hearth and home'. The word 'hearth' shares its ancestry with 'heart', just as the modern Greek for 'hearth' is kardia, which also means 'heart'. In Ancient Greece the wider concept of hearth and home was expressed by the oikos, which lives on for us today in economics and ecology. The Latin for hearth is focus - with speaks for itself. It is a strange and wonderful thing that out of the words for fireplace we have spun "cardiologist', 'deep focus' and 'eco-warrior'. The essential meaning of centrality that connects them also reveals the great significance of the hearth to the Greeks and Romans, and consequently the importance of Hestia, its presiding deity.”

MythologyGreek MythologyAncient GreeceGreek GodsHestiaHearth
Book:Mythos - The Greek Myths Retold
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“Fairest of the deathless gods. This idea the Greeks had of him is best summed up not by a poet, but by a philosopher, Plato: "Love—Eros—makes his home in men's hearts, but not in every heart, for where there is hardness he departs. His greatest glory is that he cannot do wrong nor allow it; force never comes near him. For all men serve of him their own free will. And he whom Love touches not walks in darkness.”

HistoryMythologyAestheticsAncient Greece
Book:Mythology
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“Misogyny was born of fear of women. It spawned the ideology of male superiority. But this was ideology, not statement of fact; as such, it could not be confirmed, but was open to constant doubt. Male status was not immutable. Myths of matriarchies and Amazons societies showed female dominance. Three of the eleven extant comedies of Aristophanes show women in successful opposition to men. ... These were the nightmares of victors: that someday the vanquished would arise and treat their ex-masters as they themselves had been treated.”

MenWomenFeminismGenderGender RolesAncient GreeceWomen S Studies
Author:Sarah B. Ponderous
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“Sexual frenzy is our compensation for the tedious moments we must suffer in the passage of life. 'Nothing in excess,' professed the ancient Greeks. Why if I spend half the month in healthy scholarship and pleasant sleep, shouldn't I be allowed the other half to howl at the moon and pillage the groins of Europe's great beauties?”

NovelBalanceMoonEuropeQuoteLifestyleCyclesGreeceScholarshipFull MoonRoman PayneAncient GreeceThe WanderessNovel QuoteBeautiesAncient Greeks
Author:Roman Payne
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“When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear”

InspirationalWarActionRomanceAdventureAbuseArmySlaveryFeministLegacyCaptureHistorical FictionRomePrincessEgyptErotic RomancePolitical PhilosophyControversialArabiaQueenRoman EmpireImprisonmentForbidden LoveWarriorsAbuse Of PowerAncient EgyptHeroineRomance SexyAncient RomeEmpireAugustusAncient GreeceGeneralAncient WorldEpic LoveStrong Female CharacterSwordsCaesarPlottingSlavery HistoryHidden AgendaHoraceMauritaniaCleopatra SeleneExploitedCleopatra S DaughterObeliskAbuse Of WomenAncient African HistoryPhlosophicalSwordspoint
Book:We the Great Are Misthought
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“I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whore-mongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not far off the mark.”

HeroAchillesAncient GreeceAjaxGreek HeroesMartiality
Book:Flashman
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“After Theogenes died, the people of Thasos also erected a statue to their hometown hero. One local athlete, disgruntled over having lost to Theo, began making nightly visits to the statue to thump on it. Good therapy for the attacker, no doubt, but the abuse made the statue come loose from its moorings. One evening, it fell on the sore loser and killed him. No Greek would let a statue get away with murder--consequently, the bronze was immediately prosecuted under local homicide laws and tossed into the sea. (The Greeks firmly believed that all killers must be punished, whether they were higher primates or rocks from an avalanche.)”

Ancient GreeceAncient CivilizationsGreek LawWorking Xi To V
Author:Vicky Leon
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“In the past, people around the world heard the buzzing of bees as voices of the departed, a murmured conveyance from the spirit world. This belief traces back to the cultures of Egypt and Greece, among others, where tradition held that a person's soul appeared in bee form when it left the body, briefly visible (and audible) in its journey to the hereafter...Nobody knows the exact sequence of events that led to the beginning of bees, but everyone can agree on at least one thing: we know what it sounded like.”

BeliefTraditionBeesBuzzAncient EgyptAncient GreeceSpirit WorldBuzzing
Book:Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees
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“The gods are given even greater license to lie and deceive. Apparently, they do not have the same degree of responsibility to their relatives and allies as humans do. Effective acts of lying and deception seem to be admired as tokens of one god's at least temporary ascendancy over another god.”

Ancient GreeceAncient PoetryDivine Deception
Book:Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics
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“I'd rather have a heart of gold Than all the treasure of the world.”

LoveHeartTruthSpiritualFaithWomenCompassionKindnessHistoryGoldAncientTreasureServiceMaterialismWomen EmpowermentSpiritual WisdomKnightsBraveheartMedievalAccomplishmentsWomen S LiberationMemoirsWoman S StrengthAncient GreeceHistory Of MankindWoman S CharacterHeart Of GoldWarriors PathWarrior WomenAncient GreeksTreasure HuntingSpirituality Energy RealisationAmazons
Book:Memoirs of An Amazon
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“Periclean Greeks employed the term idiotis, without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect the idiocy of politicization—of the professional pol and power broker. The two idiocies make a perfect match, with the apathy of the first permitting the depredations of the second.”

PoliticsAthensPolitics Of The United StatesAncient GreeceApoliticalPericles
Book:Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports
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“Following Alexander the Great in his conquest, and challenging two most ancient European historical assumptions: Firstly, Is the Ancient Europe’s progressive scientific drive the result of the Roman’s or Greek’s ancient cultural heritage?, and the Second: Why is the question - are the Macedonians, Greeks or Slavs, so troublesome, in the minds of both commoners and historians?”

GodSoundHistoryHistorical FictionMetaphysicsArchaeologyAncient RomeAncient GreeceName Of GodSlavs
Book:Metaphysics of Sound
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“The sciences were financially supported, honoured everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliterated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were altered out of recognition.”

ScienceReligionChristianityAncient GreeceByzantium
Book:From The Meadows of Gold
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“For the philosophers of ancient Babylonia and Greece the sense world was not considered an illusion. In the search for Divine, they turned towards art, towards symbols and signs within myths and legends. They created such a marvel of art that every detail became an expression of the spiritual. In mysterious ways the wisdom of the initiates poured into poets, artists, and thinkers. They awakened powers of thought and feeling that are not directly stimulated by the spiritual world. Manipulating the elements, they turned towards the Lady Science and carried her principles to the point that we are now able to manipulate the sound, the light, the matter and its manifestation.”

SpiritualityDivineWisdom QuotesSymbolsSpiritual GrowthMind Body SpiritOccultSymbolismAncient GreeceSoul And Spirit
Book:Spiritual Symbols
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“Socratese was a famous IRL troll of pre-internets Greece credited with inventing the 1st recorded trolling technique and otherwise laying the foundation of western philosophy. Accounts of his successful trolls are in the form of TL;DR copypasta on Plato's livejournal. They have been causing all manner of butthurt and ass disaster for thousands of years in philosophy 101 classes around the world”

PhilosophyPhilosopherPlatoGreeceTrollAncient GreeceSocratesTrollingCopypastaLivejournal
Book:94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat
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“Animals walk around in a state of permanent religious intoxication. This is the natural condition of the mind and intellect, the moment-to-moment perception, of man as well. I heard some computer fool say that religion is the 'older virtual reality' experience, to justify his scam industry. No, the denuded state of the spirit and intellect, where you walk around 'demystified' and 'disenchanted' is the virtual reality condition, and a terrible condition at that.”

ScienceHuman NatureEnchantmentComputersVirtual RealityAncient GreeceDisenchantmentBronze AgeBernankefiedMaenad
Book:Bronze Age Mindset
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