#greeks

We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics. ↗

— Donald Kagan

#because #certain #certain things #degree #greeks

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ancient-greeks #atheism #boredom #brotherhood #cana

Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns. ↗

— Willem de Kooning

#behind #columns #felt #fraud #greeks

The ancient Greeks have a knack of wrapping truths in myths. ↗

— George Lloyd

#ancient greeks #greeks #knack #myths #truths

There are more myths about Black Wednesday than the Greeks ever created. ↗

— John Major

#black #created #ever #greeks #more

Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time. ↗

— Emil Nolde

#art #beautiful #believes #days #egyptians

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. ↗

— Barack Obama

#believe #british #brits #greek #greeks

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either. ↗

— Colin Quinn

#ancient greeks #course #either #examined #fascinating

The question of the composition of perceptible objects is one which already occupied the mind of the ancient Greeks. ↗

— Johannes Stark

#ancient #ancient greeks #composition #greeks #mind

I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts. ↗

— Virgil

#even #fear #gifts #greeks #i