Ancient Greeks Quotes

My father loved democracy. He loved the ancient Greeks because they invented democracy, and he shared their contempt for those who refused to participate in the political process.

Human beings have kicked around the concept of what individual happiness means for centuries, from the Bible to the ancient Greeks to the 1859 bestseller 'Self-Help.'

Dying, we tell ourselves, is like going to sleep. This figure of speech occurs very commonly in everyday thought and language, as well as in the literature of many cultures and many ages. It was apparently quite common even in the time of the ancient Greeks.

I guess you could say Alexander the Great was a man who completely transported me and moved me and inspired me because of his idealism, and I'd go back to the Greeks, and I always liked Homer and all the philosophers and their way of thinking and their concept of honor. I think their concept of honor does apply to the modern age, and certain people that walk around are pre-Christian.

What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the [Ancient] Greeks?

The best teachers, one hopes, don't shout at their students - because they are skilled at wooing as well as demanding the best efforts of others. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, this wooing was a sufficiently fine art in itself to be the central focus of education.

The ancient Greeks and Romans were comfortable with any number of deities and were quite open to allowing conquered nations to continue to worship in whatever ways they saw fit, as long as they didn't mind having an emperor who required taxes and tributes.

How can any educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself. One of the first moves of a dictatorship is to stifle the artists and thinkers who have the ability to stir up dissent from any prescribed dogma which might enslave them. Because the artist can arouse the curiosity and conscience of his community, he becomes a threat to those who have taken power.

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.

Now, we live in an age where we have so much information that we do tend to overload. The Greeks did too, though.

Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either.

We look at the ancient Greeks with their gods on a mountain top throwing lightning bolts and say, 'Those ancient Greeks. They were so silly. So primitive and naive. Not like our religions. We have burning bushes talking to people and guys walking on water. We're ...sophisticated.'

The human eye has long fascinated lovers, artists and physicians. The ancient Greeks dissected eyes, but struggled to understand how they worked, unclear as to whether they received or emanated light.

SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it.

While the willingness of the ancient Greeks to sacrifice their lives for glory brings tears to my eyes, I cannot ultimately condone the choice of Achilles.

I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.

The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.

The question of the composition of perceptible objects is one which already occupied the mind of the ancient Greeks.

Strangers used to gather together at the cinema and sit together in the dark, like Ancient Greeks participating in the mysteries, dreaming the same dream in unison.

Mathematics as a science, commenced when first someone, probably a Greek, proved propositions about "any" things or about "some" things, without specifications of definite particular things.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

The Greeks, with their truly healthy culture, have once and for all justified philosophy simply by having engaged in it, and having engaged in it more fully than any other people.