Athenians Quotes

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  • So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done. [Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]

    Wisdom   Events   Done  
  • Ares always reemerges from the chaos. It will never go away. Athenian civilization defends itself from the forces of Ares with metis, or technology. Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

  • At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

  • What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.

    War   History   Growth  
  • In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

    Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.301, Hackett Publishing
  • Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.

    War   Believe   Memorable  
    Thucydides, Sir Richard Winn Livingstone (1960). “The History of the Peloponnesian War”, Oxford University Press, USA
  • Our society is falling back increasingly on rampant consumerism and self-promoting social media as a way for people to feel that their lives matter - self-centered means of numbing the questions of mattering. Culture has relapsed back into the self-aggrandizing, glorifying answers that the Athenians had presumed, which had Socrates railing against them until he got so annoying that they killed him.

    Fall   Mean   Self  
    "Interview With Rebecca Goldstein on Plato at the Googleplex, Philosophy for the Public, and Everything". Interview with Ophelia Benson, www.butterfliesandwheels.org. March 20, 2014.
  • [M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything-security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.

  • The great thing about writing about the ancient Spartans or Athenians is that so much knowledge is no longer extant that no one, except maybe a Cambridge or Oxford don, can call you out and prove you wrong.

    Interview with Will Duquette, www.patheos.com. May 21, 2014.
  • I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

    Book   Patriotic   Beer  
  • To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

    Believe   Men   Touching  
  • An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

    'Sermons' vol. 1, no. 2
  • The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations.

    H. G. Wells, J. F. Horrabin, William Ross (2004). “The Outline of History: Prehistory to the Roman Republic”, p.418, Barnes & Noble Publishing
  • Mars, when guilty of homicide, and set free from the charge of murder by the Athenians through favour, lest he should appear to be too fierce and savage, committed adultery with Venus.

    Savages   Mars   Venus  
    Lactantius (2012). “The Sacred Writings of Lactantius (Annotated Edition)”, p.40, Jazzybee Verlag
  • What I am arguing, in effect, is that the full democratic system of the second half of the fifth century B.C. would not have been introduced had there been no Athenian empire.

    Half   Empires   Arguing  
  • This was the Athenians' war against the King of Macedon, a war of words. Words are the only weapons the Athenians have left.

    Kings   War   History  
  • It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.

  • Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."

    Rage   Said   Athenians  
    "Life of Phocion". Book by Plutarch. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.
  • But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.

    Plato (0101). “Apology, Crito and Phaedo of Socrates”, p.29, Prabhat Prakashan
  • [Regarding legislative assemblies,] the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

    James Madison, John Jay (1901). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”
  • Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.

    Dog   Cutting   Tails  
    Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211
  • Through the forest have I gone. But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower's force in stirring love. Night and silence.--Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon.

    Weed   Lying   Dirty  
    William Shakespeare, Thomas Bowdler (1850). “The Family Shakspeare, in One Volume: In which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read in a Family”, p.136
  • If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts.

    "Isaiah's Job". The Atlantic Monthly, June 1936.
  • Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

    Plutarch (1888). “Morals: Ethical Essays. Translated, with Notes and Index. by Arthur Richard Shilleto”
  • Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them.

    Party   Men   Law  
    "Ancient Civilizations". Book by George Shelley Hughs, p. 596, 1896.
  • The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him!

    Sleep   August   Paris  
    Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr
  • You make learning fun. Like a children’s book or after school special. Tell me about your…um, Athenian women.

    Children   Fun   Book  
    Richelle Mead (2012). “The Golden Lily: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.113, Penguin
  • How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

    Winning   Names   Athens  
  • Everyone, including the Athenians [...] are right to accept advice from anyone, since it is incumbent on everyone to share in that sort of excellence, or else there can be no city at all.

    "Protagoras". Book by Plato, Oxford University Press, p. 19, 2002.
  • Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

    Criminals   Might   Fool  
    Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211
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