Home / Topics / Greek Quotes

Greek Quotes

Browse 1279 quotes about Greek.

Greek Quotes

“The theatre, our theatre, comes from the Greeks”

Author:Edward Bond

“In stark contrast with the views of the Greek philosophers and with those of the rest of western intellectuals to the present day, Chinese Taoist thought always defended individual liberty and laissez-faire while attacking the systematic and coercive use of violence typical of government.”

“The ancient Greek "oral poets" all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the muse to help them remember.”

Helping Remember Memories Poet Praying Anxiety Ancient Greek Muse Deficiency Good Memories Ancient Greek

Author:David Antin

“This was nostalgia in the literal Greek sense: the pain of not being able to return to one's home and family.”

Home Able Pain Return Nostalgia Greek Literal Home And Family

Author:John Thorn

“The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.”

Body Joy Felt Water Red Stones Hot Seeds Smoke Greek Baths Creeps Steam Howl Cannabis Bathing Vapor Red Hot

Author:Herodotus

“Some people read their Bibles in Hebrew, some in Greek; I like to read mine in the Holy Ghost.”

People Christian Mines Holy Bible Ghost Greek Holy Ghost Hebrew

Author:Smith Wigglesworth

“The original Greek word "idiotes" referred to people who might have had a high IQ, but were so self-involved that they focused exclusively on their own life and were both ignorant of and uncaring about public concerns and the common good.”

People Self Might Common Involved Concern Originals Focused Libertarian Ignorant Greek Common Good Uncaring

Author:Jim Hightower

“Adrienne Mayor's inquiry into the myth--and surprising reality--of Amazon women begins with the fierce Greek huntress Atalanta, but takes us deep into the past and as far afield as the Great Wall of China. With the restless curiosity and meticulous scholarship that have become her hallmark, the author once again has found a gap in my bookshelf and filled it, admirably.”

“In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!”

Firsts Christian Found Jesus Names Pieces Century Poet Politician Philosopher Greek Zero Historian Scholar Correspondence Inscriptions Zips

Author:Bart D. Ehrman

“If we want happiness, I think we should follow classic Greek wisdom and live with areté. The word directly translates as 'excellence' or 'virtue,' but has a deeper meaning — something closer to 'expressing the highest version of ourselves.' When we're showing up fully moment to moment, there's no room for regret/anxiety/disillusionment, just a whole lot of happiness. Here's to getting our areté on!”

Ifs Thinking Want Should Whole Moments Rooms Virtue Regret Anxiety Highest Excellence Deeper Versions Greek Classic Translate Disillusionment Showing Up Deeper Meaning Meaning Something

Author:Brian Johnson

“The purpose of seasonal festivals is periodically to revive the topocosm. Gaster coined this word from the Greek - topo for place and cosmos for world order. Topocosm means "the world order of a particular place." The topocosm is the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism, not just the human community but the total community - the plants, animals and soils of the place. The topocosm is not only the actual and present living community but also that continuous entity of which the present community is but the current manifestation.”

“Sandoz turned and accepted the book, looking at the spine. "Aeschylus?" Wordlessly, Guiuliani pointed out the passage, and Emilio studied it a while, slowly translating the Greek in his mind. Finally, he said, "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, againstour will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."”

Mind Heart Said Book Pain Fall Sleep Forget Grace Words Of Wisdom Despair Accepted Awful Greek Passages Translate Grace Of God Spine

Author:Mary Doria Russell

“If a seperate personal Paradise exists for each of us mine must irreparably be planted with trees of words which the wind silvers like poplars, by people who see their confiscated justice given back, and by birds that even in the midst of the truth of death insist on singing in Greek and saying, eros, eros, eros.”

People Ifs Love Given Justice Tree Mines Wind Singing Bird Greek Paradise Silver Midst Eros

Author:Odysseas Elytis

“Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words.”

Should Evil Powerful Practice Mass Letters Abuse Catholic Dare Spread Innocent Greek Priests Serving Celebration Ministry Pope Forbidden Altars Bishops Chaps

Author:Pope Benedict XIV

“I don't buy into any of that hogwash. They put that out to sell tickets. It's just a classic horror movie, with the Greek drama formula of good versus evil, and lots of fear.”

Evil Drama Horror Sells Greek Classic Formulas Tickets Sentimental Versus Hogwash Greek Drama

Author:Margot Kidder

“I am confident that we can overcome this crisis, provided that we remain united in our effort to address our debt and competitiveness problems. And I think that the Greek people are united; it's important also that the political forces are united in line with the will of the Greek people.”

People Thinking Important Problem Political Force Lines United Effort Overcoming Crisis Debt Greek Addresses Competitiveness

Author:Lucas Papademos

“Greece is at a crucial crossroads. The choices that are made and the policies that are enforced will have a decisive impact on the wellbeing of Greeks. The way forward will not be easy but the problems can be solved, and will be solved, if there is unity, co-operation and consensus.”

Ifs Way Made Problem Choices Easy Policy Impact Unity Operations Greek Crucial Consensus Greece Wellbeing Crossroads Way Forward

Author:Lucas Papademos

“In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in High School to teaching remedial English in college.”

Years Wisdom Government School Gone Teaching College High School Greek Latin Latin And Greek

Author:Joseph Sobran

“Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you’re a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.”

Trying Humans May Three Sports Painting Rounds Be Good Genuine Greek Traits Suspicion Versatility Proficiency

Author:Dorothy Dunnett

“I've played American, Italian, Greek, French. I've been really lucky that way.”

Way Lucky Greek Italian

Author:Chita Rivera

“Envy is what makes you, when an acquaintance is lustily telling you that she's dating a Greek god of a guy, ask, 'Which one, Hades?'”

Guy Asks Dating Envy Greek Acquaintance Hades Greek God

Author:Gina Barreca

“Greek was very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar, not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries.”

Stills Language Definitions Greek Unconscious Grammar Dictionary

Author:Gilbert Murray

“It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.”

Source: The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life

“The ancient Greeks noticed that a man with arms and legs extended described a circle, with his navel as the center.”

Men Arms Ancient Legs Circles Greek Swagger Ancient Greek Swag Arms And Legs Navel

Author:Stephen Gardiner

“When I was a kid, I'd kneel down at the side of my bed every night before I went to sleep, and my mother and I would say a Greek prayer to the Virgin Mary.”

Kids Mother Night Sides Prayer Sleep Bed Greek Every Night Mary Virgins Virgin Mary

Author:Olympia Dukakis

“By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. . . . I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence - which is a noble thing. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English; I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.”

Long Form Boys Learning Honor Essentials Ordinary Advantage Treats Structure British Bones Sentences Noble Favors Clever Greek Latin Immense Lowest Biased Learning English

Author:Winston Churchill

“Mass ought to be in Latin, unless you could do it in Greek or Chinese. In fact, any abracadabra that no bloody member of the public or half-educated ape of a clargimint could think he understood.”

Thinking Facts Church Half Ought Members Mass Understood Educated Chinese Greek Latin Bloody Apes Abracadabra

Book:The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941

Source: The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941

“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”

People Should Art Play Dies Actors Pieces Impossible Air Return Drama Theater Dresses Boxes Dinner Actresses Theatre Destroyed Evening Greek Poison Plague Actors And Actresses

Author:Eleanora Duse

“Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last”

Firsts May Two Lasts Courses Achievement Possession Greek Neglect Disgusting Remarks Attainment Two Days Malicious Course Of Life

Book:The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author

Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author

“It's ironic that Olympic spectators will never have seen Yiannis Kouros, the greatest Greek athlete since Pheidippides”

Athlete Greek Endurance Ironic Spectators

Author:Ed Ayres

“I think the Greeks first took astrology to India and took from the Hindus the science of astronomy and carried it back with them from Europe. Because in India you will find old altars made according to a certain geometrical plan, and certain things had to be done when the stars were in certain positions, therefore I think the Greeks gave the Hindus astrology, and the Hindus gave them astronomy.”

Thinking Firsts Made Done Certain Stars Plans Position Europe India Astronomy Greek Astrology Altars

Book:The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“The Greeks understood that mind and body must develop in harmonious proportions to produce a creative intelligence. And so did the most brilliant intelligence of our earliest days - Thomas Jefferson - when he said, not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise. If the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, was Secretary of State, and twice President, could give it two hours, our children can give it ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Whoever heard of such a mixture of languages in one army, since there were French, Flemings, Frisians, Gauls, Sayonards, Lotharingians, Allemani, Bavarians, Normans, English, Scots, Aquitanians, Italians, Danes, Apulians, Iberians, Bretons, Greeks and Armenians.”

Language History Heard Army Greek Mixtures Scots Armenians

Author:Fulcher of Chartres

“Demon mean knowledge in Greek, especially about the material world. Science means knowledge in Latin. A jurisdictional dispute is exposed, even if we look no further”

Ifs World Looks Mean Science Materials Greek Demon Latin Exposed Disputes Material World

Author:Carl Sagan

“She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans.”

Firsts Remember Sex Memories Creatures Excellent Greek

Book:The Sayings of Disraeli

Source: The Sayings of Disraeli

“Ruth and I don't have a perfect marriage, but we have a great one. How can I say two things that seem so contradictory? In a perfect marriage, everything is always the finest and best imaginable; like a Greek statue, the proportions are exact and the finish is unblemished. Who knows any human being lke that? For a marriage couple to expect perfection in each other is unrealistic.”

Knows Humans Two Wisdom Seems Human Beings Perfect Couple Perfection Greek Two Things Proportion Finest Statues Contradictory Great Ones Ruth Perfect Marriage

Author:Billy Graham

“I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with. I hope the overall view isn't just that though, or I've failed in my writing. There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies.”

Thinking Way Writing Art Real Moments Character Lying Lines Walks Views Comedy Drama Extremes Cruelty One Way Greek Decent Glimpse Twisted Affirming Life Affirming

Author:Martin McDonagh

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”

World Book Citizens Drink Beer Greek Patriotism Patriotic Greek Philosopher World Citizen Athenians Banishment

Author:Diogenes

“You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are our noblest symbol of excellence. They are a tribute to the democratic philosophy. They are our aspirations and our name. They are the essence of Greekness.”

Mean Philosophy Names Democracy Sacrifice Pride Politician Essence Democratic Excellence Actresses Singers Symbols Greek Aspiration Patriotic Marble Tribute Athens Parthenon

Author:Melina Mercouri

“After independence was gained, one of the first Acts passed by the Greek government was for the protection and preservation of national monuments.”

Firsts Government Independence Protection Greek Preservation Monument

Author:Melina Mercouri

“Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. In South America they throw flowers to you. In Greece Greeks throw themselves.”

America Wonderful Flower South Enthusiasm Greek Wonderful Things Greece South America

Author:Melina Mercouri

“The only way for us to become great, or even inimitable if possible, is to imitate the Greeks.”

Author:Johann Joachim Winckelmann

“The ‘I’ character in journalism is almost pure invention. Unlike the ‘I’ of autobiography, who is meant to be seen as a representation of the writer, the ‘I’ of journalism is connected to the writer only in a tenuous way—the way, say, that Superman is connected to Clark Kent. The journalistic ‘I’ is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.”

“Edited by mostly unknown scholars in A.D. 367, compiled from documents written 30 to 110 years after the Christ event by no one who was present at the events, and composed for the most part by unknown authors in the Greek language that Jesus never spoke, it is held up as the only true record of the Christ story.”

Years Stories Jesus Language Christ Records Written Events Greek Spokes Scholar Documents Edited

Book:The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

Source: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

“A lot of people don't know that my background is completely classical. For a while there, I was all about Molière and the Greeks and Brecht and Tennessee Williams.”

People Knows Backgrounds Greek Tennessee Brecht

Author:Katy Mixon

“To defer anything to the Greek Calends is to defer it sine die. There were no calends in the Greek months. The Romans used to pay rents, taxes, bills, etc., on the calends, and to defer paying them to the “Greek Calends” was virtually to repudiate them. (See NEVER.)”

Used Dies Pay Months Taxes Bills Greek Etc

Author:E. Cobham Brewer

“Most people assume that a muse is a creature of perfect beauty, poise and grace. Like the creatures from Greek mythology. They're wrong. In fact, there should be a marked absence of perfection in a muse--a gaping hole between what she is and what she might be. The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.”

“It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.”

Humans Long Real Soul Girl Black White Boys Study Breaths Breathe Greek Human Soul Boy And Girl Black Or White

Book:W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings

Source: W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings

“And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek.'”

Writing Philosopher Greek Plato Moses Attics

Book:The Sacred Writings of Clement of Alexandria (Annotated Edition)

Source: The Sacred Writings of Clement of Alexandria (Annotated Edition)

“The Greeks distinguished between good and bad behavior, language that enhanced or diminished persons. Being intoxicated with scientism, we fail to recognize that the seemingly technical terms used to identify psychiatric illnesses and interventions are simply dyphemisms and euphemisms.”

Persons Used Language Term Failing Behavior Illness Greek Intervention Good And Bad Distinguished Scientism Intoxicated Psychiatric Euphemism Bad Behavior

Author:Thomas Szasz