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Modern Quotes

“I've long said that comic books are the modern equivalent of our Greek myths.”

Long Said Book Modern Myth Comic Greek Comic Book Greek Myth

Author:David S. Goyer

“Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, "without government": the state of a people without any constituted authority. Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word "anarchy" was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth.”

“They were the first Westerners. The spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery; and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world.”

World Firsts Spirit Modern Discovery West Greek Modern World Westerners

Book:The Greek way ; The Roman way

Source: The Greek way ; The Roman way

“Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.”

“The modern sensibility attempts to drain the contents of experience; these Greek poets strive to state the fact so poignantly that it becomes an ever-flowing spring as Sappho says, "More real than real, more gold than gold.”

Real States Facts Modern Poet Spring Gold Strive Greek Sensibility Drains

Book:Classics Revisited

Source: Classics Revisited

“... passion, once unleashed, has a way of unleashing other passions -- a principle adhered to as firmly by the police force of any large modern city as by the Greek tragedians.”

Way Passion Force Cities Principles Modern Police Greek Unleashed Police Force Unleashing

Author:Caroline Gordon

“I think great humor lies in playing the truth of a situation. I see myself as a performer and that applies to a Greek drama or a modern comedy.”

Thinking Lying Situation Comedy Modern Drama Greek Performers Greek Drama

Author:Brendan Coyle

“We tend to think of divorced or complicated families as a modern invention, and that is not at all true. You only have to read the Greek myths to see broken homes, widows, divorce, stepchildren, children trying to get along with new parents.”

Thinking Trying Children Home Parent Modern Broken Complicated Divorce Myth Invention Greek Divorced Widows True You Greek Myth Broken Homes New Parents Stepchild Stepchildren

Author:Rick Riordan

“We may say, in a broad way, that Greek philosophy down to Aristotle expresses the mentality appropriate to the City State; that Stoicism is appropriate to a cosmopolitan despotism; that stochastic philosophy is an intellectual expression of the Church as an organization; that philosophy since Descartes, or at any rate since Locke, tends to embody the prejudices of the commercial middle class; and that Marxism and Fascism are the philosophies appropriate to the modern industrial state.”

“What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindeness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience.”

“Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism.”

Facts Our Lives Modern Dues Greek Anachronism

Book:Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis

Source: Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis

“The idea of childhood as a social invention, in retrospect, is hardly credible. In the Bible, in writings of the Greeks and Romans, and in the works of the first great educator of the modern era, Comenius, children were recognized as being both different from adults and different from one another with respect to their stages of development. To be sure, the scientific study of children and the increased length of life in modern times have enhanced our understanding of age differences, but they have always been acknowledged.”

“I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.”

“The modern haematologist, instead of describing in English what he can see, prefers to describe in Greek what he can’t.”

Modern Greek Describing

Author:Richard Asher

“In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.”

Two Would Be Language Modern Ancient Greek Hebrew Modern Languages

Author:W. H. Auden

“The fact is that much misunderstanding is often caused by our modern attempts to limit too strictly the meaning of a Greek word.”

Facts Modern Limits Greek Misunderstanding

Book:On the Art of Poetry

Source: On the Art of Poetry

“There is one bit of advice given us by the ancient Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest; and lending money at interest - what we call investment - is the basis of our whole system.”

Source: The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics