Chios Quotes

I must try to live austerely, as Plato did.. .I need to live a more solitary life.. .Valuable ideas beyond number miscarry because I have no continuity in my thoughts.. ..The things which we experience for ourselves when we are on our own are stronger by far, and fresher... [his painting 'The Massacre at Chios' was half done when he wrote this note]. (Eugène Delacroix)

Constable, an admirable man, is one of England's glories. I have already told you about him and about the impression he had made on me when I was making 'The massacre at Chios'. He and Turner were real reformers. They broke out of the rut of traditional landscape painting. Our School [ French Romanticism ], which today abounds in men of talent in this field, profited greatly by their example. Géricault [first leader of French Romanticism, followed by Delacroix after his early death] came back in a daze from seeing one of the great landscapes Constable sent us.

Eugène Delacroix

I promise this, that if I am supported by our most invincible sovereigns with a little of their help, as much gold can be supplied as they will need, indeed as much of spices, of cotton, of mastic gum (which is only found in Chios), also as much of aloes wood, and as many slaves for the navy, as their Majesties will wish to demand.

Christopher Columbus

Aristo the Bald, a native of Chios and nicknamed the Siren, said that the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things that are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice; making not the slightest difference between them, but regarding them all on a footing of equality. For that the wise man resembles a good actor; who, whether he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform them both equally well.

Aristo of Chios

By the time of Hippocrates of Chios the scope of Greek geometry was no longer even limited to the Elements; certain special problems were also attacked which were beyond the power of the geometry of the straight line and circle, and which were destined to play a great part in determining the direction taken by Greek geometry in its highest flights. The main problems in question were three: (1) the doubling of the cube, (2) the trisection of any angle, (3) the squaring of the circle; and from the time of Hippocrates onwards the investigation of these problems proceeded pari passu with the completion of the body of the Elements.

Thomas Little Heath