Greeks Quotes - page 2

Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation. (Carl Sagan)
Three classes inhabited the city (Alexandria in Egypt): first the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not inclined to civil life; and secondly the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable...; and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others, for even though they were a mixed people, still they were Greeks by origin and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks. View quote
Strabo
Ever since the Greeks, we have been drunk with language! We have made a cage with words and shoved our God inside! View quote
Morris West
The dance of the future will have to become again a high religious art as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious is not art. It is mere merchandise. View quote
Isadora Duncan
The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the underside of things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm. - Εν Θεος - A God within. View quote
Louis Pasteur
Of all peoples the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life best. View quote
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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. View quote
Thomas Szasz
Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind. View quote
Winston Churchill
Hence, we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks. View quote
Winston Churchill
Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but all is an aggregation or secretion of preexisting things; so that all becoming might more correctly be called becoming mixed, and all corruption, becoming separate. View quote
Anaxagoras
Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Hellas [Greece] and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed leader of the Greeks, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you. (Alexander the Great)
Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians... and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians. View quote
Alexander the Great
Make way, you Roman writers, make way, Greeks! Something greater than the Iliad is born. View quote
Propertius
We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece. View quote
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The monarchy of the Greeks for want of an heir was broken into several kingdoms; four of which, seated to the four winds of heaven, were very eminent. For Ptolemy reigned over Egypt, Lybia and Ethiopia; Antigonus over Syria and the lesser Asia; Lysimachus over Thrace; and Cassander over Macedon, Greece and Epirus. View quote
Isaac Newton
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound gods. View quote
John F. Kennedy
The Christianocategori, or Accusers of Christians, are such and are so called, because those Christians who worship one living and true God praised in Trinity they accused of worshiping as gods, after the manner of the Greeks, the venerable images of our Lord Jesus Christ, of our immaculate lady, the holy Mother of God, of the holy angels, and of His saints. They are furthermore called Iconoclasts, because they have shown deliberate dishonor to all these same holy and venerable images and have consigned them to be broken up and burnt. Likewise, some of those painted on walls they have scraped off, while others they have obliterated with whitewash and black paint. They are also called Thymoleontes, or Lion-hearted, because, taking advantage of their authority, they have with great heart given strength to their heresy and with torment and torture visited vengeance upon those who approve of the images. View quote
John of Damascus
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. View quote
Tom Chatfield
We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it-that makes no sense. What mycould never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time. View quote
Jeffrey Eugenides
The first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any philosophical view of a language as such. View quote
Ferdinand de Saussure
Why do Greeks always open restaurants that fail? (George Chakiris)
Athens will again be the host of the Games in 2004, but there are rumors that they might be switched if the Greeks don't begin to construct the sites faster. View quote
Bill Toomey
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. View quote
Colin Quinn
We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics. View quote
Donald Kagan
Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are. View quote
Jan Peter Balkenende