Quotes from Edith Hamilton

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

A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.

Reality has actually very little to do with truth; there is no necessary connection between the two.

He was there beside her, yet she was far away from him, aone with her outraged love and her ruined life.

Love and the Soul (for that is what Psyche means) had sought and, after sore trials, found each other; and that union could never be broken. (Cupid and Psyche)

When faith is supported by facts or by logic it ceases to be faith.

When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again.

The fundamental fact about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priests had said 'Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought.' The Greek said, 'All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought.'

Moderately wise each one should be, Not overwise, for a wise man's heart Is seldom glad (Norse Wisdom)

Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.

Myths are early science, the result of men's first trying to explain what they saw around them.

The comedy of each age holds up a mirror to the people of that age, a mirror that is unique.

When we speak of beauty, we're speaking of something we're more or less indifferent to.

It is not hard work that is dreary it is superficial work

There is no dignity like the dignity of a soul in agony.

The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium.

Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.

The modern minds in each generation are the critics who preserve us from a petrifying world, who will not leave us to walk undisturbed in the ways of our fathers.

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

Love cannot live where there is no trust.