Quotes from Edith Hamilton

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is being educated.

Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek name for the man who took no share in public matters.

When the world is storm-driven and bad things happen, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.

The Old Testament is the record of men's conviction that God speaks directly to men.

Freedom was born in Greece because there men limited their own freedom. ... The limits to action established by law were a mere nothing compared to the limits established by a man's free choice.

Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.

All things are at odds when God sets a thinker loose on the planet

Great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within.

Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history.

They yoked themselves to a car and drew her all the long way through dust and heat. Everyone admired their filial piety when they arrived and the proud and happy mother standing before the statue prayed that Hera would reward them by giving them the best gift in her power. As she finished her prayer the two lads sank to the ground. They were smiling and they looked as if they were peacefully asleep but they were dead. (Biton and Cleobis)

An ancient writer says of Homer that he touched nothing without somehow honoring and glorifying it.

Genius moves to creation, not to destruction. Only a very few have combined both.

A magical universe was so terrifying because it was so irrational. There was no cause and effect anywhere.

This idea the Greeks had of him is best summed up not by a poet, but by a philosopher, Plato: "Love—Eros—makes his home in men's hearts, but not in every heart, for where there is hardness he departs. His greatest glory is that he cannot do wrong nor allow it; force never comes near him. For all men serve him of their own free will. And he whom Love touches not walks in darkness.

To the Greeks, the word character first referred to the stamp upon a coin. By extension, man was the coin, and the character trait was the stamp imprinted upon him. To them, that trait, for example bravery, was a share of something all mankind had, rather than means of distinguishing one from the whole.

None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry.

The fifth race is that which is now upon the earth: the iron race. They live in evil times and their nature too has much of evil, so that they never have rest from toil and sorrow. As the generations pass, they grow worse; sons are always inferior to their fathers. A time will come when they have grown so wicket that they will worship power, might will be right to them, and reverence for the good will cease to be.

A silly man lies awake all night, Thinking of many things. When the morning comes he is worn with care, And his trouble is just as it was.

It is by our power to suffer, above all, that we are of more value than the sparrows.

It is the men of this land who are bloodthirsty and they lay their own guilt on the gods.

The American classicist Edith Hamilton once described the great works of literature, the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.

Tragedy cannot take place around a type. Suffering is the most individualizing thing on earth.

We hold there is no worse enemy to a state than he who keeps the law in his own hands.

Far better die, she said. She took in her hand a casket which held herbs for killing, but as she sat there with it, she thought of life and the delightful things that are in the world; and the sun seemed sweeter than ever before.