Quotes about greek

Theognis -

I heard the voice of that bird, son of Polypas, whose piercing outcryand whose arrival announces to men the season when fieldsare plowed, and the voice of her broke the heart that darkens within me,since other men posess my flourishing acres now,and not for me are the mules dragging the plow through the grainland,since I have given my heart to the restless seafarer's life.

Homer - The Odyssey

But they could neither of them persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it.

John Mole - Retsina--and Real Greeks

Greek is a wonderfully rich and expressive language, which makes it one of the harder of the European tongues to learn. The active vocabulary is much bigger than other European languages. The constructions and the different endings are not easy to master, especially if you are an English speaker.

John Mole - Retsina--and Real Greeks

For the first few months I went round in a linguistic fog. Often I only realized what someone had said minutes or even days or weeks afterwards.

Sudhir Ahluwalia - Holy Herbs : Modern Connections to Ancient Plants

The original text of the Bible was perhaps written in Hebrew and Aramaic and later translated into Greek.

Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes

You’re probably wondering: why were Medusa’s kids a golden warrior and a winged horse? And how had they been stuck in Medusa’s body all those years?Heck, I dunno. I’m just telling you how it was. You want stuff to make sense, you’re in the wrong universe

Plutarch - Vol 2

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and gives them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune...

Meredith Willson -

. . . when a woman has a husbandAnd you've got none,Why should she take advice from you?Even if you can quote Balzac and ShakespeareAnd all them other highfalutin' Greeks.

Barry B. Powell - Classical Myth

As you set out on your journey to Ithaca,pray that your journey be a long one,filled with adventure, filled with discovery.Laestrygonians and Cyclopes,the angry Poseidon--do not fear them:you'll never find such things on your wayunless your sight is set high, unless a rareexcitement stirs your spirit and your body.The Laestrygonians and Cyclopes,the savage Poseidon--you won't meet themso long as you do not admit them to your soul,as long as your soul does not set them before you.Pray that your r

Demetra Angelis Foustanellas - Secrets In A Jewellery Box

Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.”Patricia Briggs.

Alexander the Great -

Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.

Rick Riordan - The House of Hades

About five meters ahead, Nico was swinging his black sword with one hand, holding the scepter of Diocletian aloft with the other. He kept shouting orders at the legionnaires, but they paid him no atte

Rick Riordan - The Son of Neptune

It wasn’t easy looking dignified wearing a bed sheet and a purple cape.

Paul McAuley - Something Coming Through

I fear that there will be no neat ending to this, in the manner of the old Greek plays. Where the Gods descend, and all is explained, and tidied away.

Rick Riordan - The Serpent's Shadow

I see murky visions of other gods and rival magic."That REALLY didn't sound good."What do you mean?" I asked. "what OTHER GODS?""I don't know, Sadie. But Egypt has always faced challenges from outside –– magicians from elsewhere, even gods from elsewhere. Just be vigilant."~Ruby & Sadie Kane about...? Possibly Greeks?

Thomas Henry Huxley - The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century

It is certain that the labors of these early workers in the field of natural knowledge were brought to a standstill by the decay and disruption of the Roman Empire, the consequent disorganisation of society, and the diversion of men's thoughts from sublunary matters to the problems of the supernatural world suggested by Christian dogma in the Middle Ages. And, notwithstanding sporadic attempts to recall men to the investigation of nature, here and there, it was not until the fifteenth and sixtee

Euripides - The Trojan Women

Soon all of you immortalsWill be as dead as we are! Come on then, what are you waiting for?Have you run out of thunderbolts?

Aeschylus -

The moving light, rejoicing in its strength, Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way, In golden glory, like some strange new sun...

Rick Riordan - The Lightning Thief

I sort of fell.""Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?

Thomm Quackenbush - Pagan Standard Times: Essays on the Craft

Hades does not have a runny nose. I know this. The entire Greek pantheon no doubt knows this. For some reason, my nose is unaware of this basic fact of mythology.

M.S. Watson - Frost

You’re the girl that I have been wanting. You’re the girl that I could see myself with forever. And most importantly, you’re the girl that I’ve fallen in love with.

Rick Riordan - The Sea of Monsters

Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!

Virgil - The Aeneid

...She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.

Virgil -

the dank night is sweeping down from the skyand the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.

Virgil -

The signs of the old flame, I know them well.I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me downor the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.

Virgil - The Aeneid

..and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the seaand what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl...

Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles

That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.

Alexander the Great -

Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thra

Tai - Cupid's Academy: Argus' Big Fat Greek Wedding Ring

She wore an A-line bridal gown with a V-shaped neckline while Apollo playing Bach's Air on the G string.

Ovid - Metamorphoses

In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.

Dan Brown - Angels & Demons

I’m relieved to seethat even brilliant physicists make mistakes.”Kohler looked over. “What do you mean?”“Whoever wrote that note made a mistake. That column isn’t Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That one’s tapered. It’s Doric—the Greek counterpart. A common mistake.”Kohler did not smile. “The author meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic means containing ions—electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them.

Sinclair Lewis - Elmer Gantry

And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology.

Alexander the Great -

Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For

Protagoras -

Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist, or what form they might have, for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life.

Michael Martin -

If you look up 'atheism' in the dictionary, you will probably find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly many people understand atheism in this way. Yet many atheists do not, and this is not what the term means if one considers it from the point of view of its Greek roots. In Greek 'a' means 'without' or 'not' and 'theos' means 'god.' From this standpoint an atheist would simply be someone without a belief in God, not necessarily someone who believes that God does not exist. A

Herophilus -

When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.

Joseph Campbell - Myths to Live By

One of the most interesting histories of what comes of rejecting science we may see in Islam, which in the beginning received, accepted, and even developed the classical legacy. For some five or six rich centuries there is an impressive Islamic record of scientific thought, experiment, and research, particularly in medicine. But then, alas! the authority of the general community, the Sunna, the consensus—which Mohammed the Prophet had declared would always be right—cracked down. The Word of God

Alexander the Great -

Holy shadows of the dead, I am not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same vi

Ann Wroe - Orpheus: The Song of Life

It was generally believed, said Theophilus, that Orpheus learned his music from the birds. His small voice, piping after theirs, filled with all the secret stories of the earth.

Rebecca Boucher - Novel Hearts

Fearful that they would be caught, the young lovers cast themselves into the sea with their stone, saying these words, "May we ever be united in love and hidden as long as this stone hides in deep waters.

Rebecca Boucher - Novel Hearts

Sometime later, I stood watching the cold rain fall, when suddenly I felt Daemon's arms around me and his lips on my neck. He loved my pregnant body and his hands roamed over it under the warm terrycloth of my bathrobe. I was lost in the moment, content to stay here forever...lost in the cold rain and welcoming warmth of Dublin, and lost in the arms of my husband. Since we arrived early this morning we were in our room, making love and sleeping, lost in a fairy tale moment, savoring every caress

Rebecca Boucher - Novel Hearts

I remembered Daemon's feather soft kisses on my cheek, and I remembered the clouds parting and the sun shining on a cold February day in Ireland. And as my baby girl was laid on my chest and my husband held my hand, I saw my best friend Kat walk into the sun kissed part in the clouds, hand in hand, along with the last regrets of my past.

Stephanie Greenhalgh - Novel Hearts

His eyes danced like a teenager. "Eat anyone alive today?" her father joked.Ruby returned his wicked grin and sauntered into the living room. "Not today, but tomorrow's another day.

Jennifer Paquette - Novel Hearts

I've been waiting for you," he murmured.Aphrodite slowly walked across the balcony, as her mind raced, trying to think of the perfect thing to say in return. All of a sudden a thought came to her that she didn't quite understand, but she knew it was right. It was also important, and would immortalize her and her actions for thousands of years to come."Happy Valentine's Day," she purred, as she fell into his arms, still holding the box of chocolates and a single red rose.

Ferrol Sams - The Whisper of the River

Of a sudden he felt that fraternity life was the only way to exist at college. How could he have doubted? (126)

Sulari Gentill - Chasing Odysseus

He has been known to devour men.” “He’s a cannibal?” Cadmus asked in horror. “Well, not really,” Daemon replied. “He is a Cyclops. He does not eat his own kind — just men and only those who challenge him … he does not hunt them.

Bernard Knox - The Oldest Dead White European Males & Other Reflections on the Classics

The same touchy sense of personal honor that is at the root of Achilles' wrath still governs relations between man and man in modern Greece; Greek society still fosters in the individual a fierce sense of his privileges, no matter how small, of his rights, no matter how confined, of his personal worth, no matter how low. And to defend it, he will stop, like Achilles, at nothing.

Joseph McCabe - The Sources of the Morality of the Gospels

The sentiments attributed to Christ are in the Old Testament. They were familiar in the Jewish schools and to all the Pharisees, long before the time of Christ, as they were familiar in all the civilizations of the earth — Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian, Greek, and Hindu.

Rick Riordan - The Battle of the Labyrinth

The wine god sighed. 'Oh Hades if I know. But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.' He left me alone to think about that. And as I watched Clarisse and Chris singing a stupid campfire song together, holding hands in the darkness, whe

Roman Payne - Rooftop Soliloquy

Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.

Titus Lucretius Carus - Lucretius on the Nature of Things

The whole of life but labours in the dark.For just as children tremble and fear allIn the viewless dark, so even we at timesDread in the light so many things that beNo whit more fearsome than what children feign,Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.This terror then, this darkness of the mind,Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,But only nature's aspect and her law.

Salley Vickers -

There are few things more mysterious than endings. I mean, for example, when did the Greek gods end, exactly? Was there a day when Zeus waved magisterially down from Olympus and Aphrodite and her lover Ares, and her crippled husband Hephaestus ) I always felt sorry for him), and all the rest got rolled up like a worn-out carpet?

Sulari Gentill - Chasing Odysseus

Hero,” he said softly, in a manner that was much like his father’s. “Vengeance and glory are the ways of the Greeks and the Trojans. We are of the Herdsmen.

Sulari Gentill - Chasing Odysseus

It is not easy to soothe the immortal gods from their vengeance.

Sulari Gentill - Chasing Odysseus

You know, Mac,”Cadmus said still looking out the window. “We may have to work on the way we tell our story …apparently it’s not amusing enough.” “I’ll try to include a joke between ‘he bled to death’and ‘the city burned’.”Machaon responded tersely.

Sophocles -

You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering.

Odysseus Elytis -

If a separate personal Paradise exists for each of us, mine must be irreparably planted with trees of words which the wind silvers like poplars, by people who see their confiscated justice given back, and by birds that even in the midst of truth of death insist on singing in Greek and saying eros, eros, eros.

Robin Wall Kimmerer - and the Teachings of Plants

The word ecology is derived from the Greek oikos, the word for home.

Diogenes Laërtius -

As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life.

Sulari Gentill - Chasing Odysseus

Hero,” said Machaon to his sister who was still muttering to her gods. “Please stop. Surely the gods would have heard you by now … let’s try not to annoy them.

Sunday Adelaja -

Light means knowledge in the Greek language it can also be translated as illumination, knowledge, insight, understanding and wisdom

Roman Payne -

Life is Not a perpetual climb towards Greatness.For our family, ourselves, and friends,It is but sad Decay, so,Let every girl die after her Hebé (Ἥβη).And every man after his Aristeia(ἀριστεία).

allimachus and Lycophron CXLII -

At morn we buried Melanippus; as the sun set the maiden Basilo died by her own hand, as she could not endure to lay her brother on the pyre and live; and the house beheld a two-fold woe, and all Cyrene bowed her head, to see the home of happy children made desolate.

Euripides -

Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.

Hesiod -

…Perses, hear me out on justice, and take what I have to say to heart; cease thinking of violence. For the son of Kronos, Zeus, has ordained this law to men: that fishes and wild beasts and winged birds should devour one another, since there is no justice in them; but to mankind he gave justice which proves for the best.

Constantinos P. Cavafis - Collected Poems

Άλλα ζητεί η ψυχή σου, γι’ άλλα κλαίει·

Constantinos P. Cavafis - Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems

ΕπιθυμίεςΣαν σώματα ωραία νεκρών που δεν εγέρασανκαι τάκλεισαν, με δάκρυα, σε μαυσωλείο λαμπρό,με ρόδα στο κεφάλι και στα πόδια γιασεμιά --έτσ' η επιθυμίες μοιάζουν που επέρασανχωρίς να εκπληρωθούν· χωρίς ν' αξιωθεί καμιάτης ηδονής μια νύχτα, ή ένα πρωϊ της φεγγερό."Desires"Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown oldand they shut them, with tears, in a brilliant mausoleum,with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet --this is what desires resemble that have passedwithout fulfillmen

Maggie Stiefvater - The Dream Thieves

Derisively, Ronan said, 'No. The ancient Greeks didn't have a word for Blue.'Everyone at the table looked at him.'What the hell, Ronan?' said Adam.'It's hard to imagine," Gansey mused, 'how this evidently successful classical education never seems to make it into your school papers.''They never ask the right questions,' Ronan replied.

Thomas Paine - The Age of Reason

The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and id

John Mole - Retsina--and Real Greeks

Whisper it softly, but many Greeks, including clergy, welcomed the Ottomans. On the whole Muslim rulers have been much more tolerant of infidels than their Christian counterparts have. As long as their subjects paid taxes and provided recruits to the harems and armies of the Sultan, they could have whatever religion they liked. Only when they joined religion with revolt did scimitars and stakes come out. Orthodox Christianity was under far greater threat from the Roman variety imposed by Venetia

Aeschylus - Agamemnon

Rumours voiced by women come to nothing.

Dave Barry - Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland

If a Greek woman tells you to do something, you do it.

Alexander Chee - Edinburgh

Sappho isn't really meant to be read. It's meant to be sung and there were dances for the songs, also. Sappho was a performance artist, and now she exists as a textual project. She was saved by her critics, and by people who wrote of her in letters to each other. As the morning sun lathers the pool through the long windows and stripes the opposite walls in gold, I look at the fragment translations. She's paper, too. A paper poet for a paper boy. People claim to be translating her but they don't,

Muse - Enigmatic Evolution

White IrisThe iris danced acrossthe ancient Grecian skiesgliding with her embossedsatiny milken sides ...

William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice

Lorenzo: In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love to come again to Carthage Jessica: In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson. Lorenzo: In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice, as far as Belmont. Jessica: In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and ne'er a true one. Lorenzo: In such

Luke Slattery - Reclaiming Epicurus

The true Epicurean cultivates the capacity to take pleasure in simple things, while those around him chase pleasure in more things.

Philip Roth - The Human Stain

Stunned by how little he'd gotten over her and she'd gotten over him, he walked away understanding, as outside his reading in classical Greek drama he'd never had to understood before, how easily life can be one thing rather than another and how accidentally a destiny is made...

Sophocles - Philoctetes

I have seen or heard of no other man whom destiny treated with such enmity as it did Philoktetes

Donna Tartt -

It seems to me that psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate.

Zeno of Citium -

if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like

Solon -

Call no man happy until he is dead.

Aristotle -

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Rick Riordan - The Battle of the Labyrinth

Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.

Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby

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.

Rick Riordan -

She glared at me like she was about to punch me, but then she did something that surprised me even more. She kissed me."Be careful seaweed brain." She said putting on her invisible cap and disappearing.I probably would have sat there all day, trying to remember my name, but then the sea demons came.

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