Edith Hamilton Quotes

Quotes about:

• The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat.

  Edith Hamilton

  Evil, Defeat, Conquer

  Edith Hamilton (1969). “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes”

  19 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Inspirational, Faith, Belief

  48 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Freedom, Responsibility, Libertarian Party

  Edith Hamilton (1964). “The Ever-Present Past”

  58 Copy quote

• To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful ... was a mark of the Greek spirit.

  Edith Hamilton

  Beautiful, Greek, World

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  40 Copy quote

• It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought-that is to be educated.

  Edith Hamilton

  Life, Education, Stress

  Quoted in the Saturday Evening Post, 27 Sep 1958.

  63 Copy quote

• Love cannot live where there is no trust.

  Edith Hamilton

  Trust, Bad Relationship, Cupid

  Edith Hamilton (1969). “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes”

  77 Copy quote

• Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.

  Edith Hamilton

  Responsibility, Men, Pay

  Edith Hamilton (1964). “The Ever-Present Past”

  15 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Men, Names, Greek

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  6 Copy quote

• In every civilization, life grows easier. Men grow lazier in consequence. We have a picture of what happened to the individual Greek. (I cannot look at history, or at any human action, except as I look at the individual.) The Greeks had good food, good witty talk, pleasant dinner parties; and they were content. When the individual man had reached that condition in Athens, when the thought not of giving to the state but of what the state could give to him, Athens' freedom was doomed.

  Edith Hamilton

  Witty, Party, Men

  10 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Men, Trying, Saws

  Edith Hamilton (1969). “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes”

  7 Copy quote

• Civilization...is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the thins of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. Where imponderables, are things of first importance, there is the height of civilization, and, if at the same time, the power of art exists unimpaired, human life has reached a level seldom attained and very seldom surpassed.

  Edith Hamilton

  Love, Art, Civilization

  7 Copy quote

• Pain is the most individualized thing on earth. It is true that it is the great common bond as well, but that realization only comes when it is over. To suffer is to be alone. To watch another suffer is to know the barrier that shuts each of us away by himself Only individuals can suffer.

  Edith Hamilton

  Pain, Remembrance, Suffering

  EDITH HAMILTON (1958). “THE GREEK WAY”

  21 Copy quote

• Uncertainty is the prerequisite to gaining knowledge and frequently the result as well.

  Edith Hamilton

  Results, Wells, Gaining Knowledge

  Edith Hamilton (1936). “The prophets of Israel”, W. W. Norton & Company

  10 Copy quote

• None so good that he has no faults, None so wicked that he is worth naught.

  Edith Hamilton

  Wicked, Faults

  Edith Hamilton (1969). “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes”

  6 Copy quote

• I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today.

  Edith Hamilton

  Men, Greek, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• It is not hard work that is dreary; it is superficial work.

  Edith Hamilton

  Hard Work, Superficial, Dreary

  12 Copy quote

• though the outside of human life changes much, the inside changes little, and the lesson-book we cannot graduate from is human experience.

  Edith Hamilton

  Life Changing, Book, Lessons

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  6 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Nature, Literature, Facts

  The Roman Way Comedy's Mirror

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edith Hamilton

  Strong, Men, Advice

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  5 Copy quote

• A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

  Edith Hamilton

  Real, Writing, People

  Edith Hamilton (1957). “The Roman Way to Western Civilization”

  15 Copy quote

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

  Edith Hamilton

  Faith, Decision, Facts

  9 Copy quote

• The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. And, at the worst, there is that in us which can turn defeat into victory.

  Edith Hamilton

  Fullness Of Life, Victory, Hazards

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  5 Copy quote

• The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next.

  Edith Hamilton

  Generations, Next, Orthodoxy

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  7 Copy quote

• They were the first Westerners. The spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery; and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world.

  Edith Hamilton

  Discovery, Greek, World

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

  4 Copy quote

• Old ideas are continually being slain by new facts. There is nothing stable in the conclusions of the mind, and it is impossible that there ever should be unless we hold that the universe is made to the measure of the human mind, an assumption for which nothing in the past gives any warrant.

  Edith Hamilton

  Past, Ideas, Giving

  9 Copy quote

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