Athenians Quotes

• I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

  Diogenes

  Book, Patriotic, Beer

  104 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”

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• Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence.

  John Milton

  Mother, Art, Eye

  Paradise Regained bk. 4, l. 240 (1671)

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• The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.

  Thucydides

  War, Growth, Alarms

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

  Alcuin

  Wise, Men, Stupid People

  31 Copy quote

• An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

  Robert South

  Athens, Paradise, Rubbish

  'Sermons' vol. 1, no. 2

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• How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

  Alexander the Great

  Winning, Names, Athens

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• An Athenian citizen does not neglect his state because he takes care of his own household; even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We do not regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs as harmless. We do not say that such a man 'minds his own business'. Rather we say he has no business here at all.

  Pericles

  Dark, Men, Ideas

  10 Copy quote

• Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you.

  Plato

  Love You, Men, And Love

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• The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

  Themistocles

  Son, Wife, Greek

  34 Copy quote

• We Athenians hold that it is not poverty that is disgraceful but the failure to struggle against it.

  Pericles

  Struggle, Poverty, Poor

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• Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

  David Hume

  Teacher, Passion, Reflection

  David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.127, tredition

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• This was the Athenians' war against the King of Macedon, a war of words. Words are the only weapons the Athenians have left.

  Livy

  Kings, War, History

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• If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts.

  Albert J. Nock

  Strong, Plato, Character

  "Isaiah's Job". The Atlantic Monthly, June 1936.

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• Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

  Plutarch

  Criminals, Might, Fool

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211

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• Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.

  Plutarch

  Dog, Cutting, Tails

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211

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• Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."

  Plutarch

  Rage, Said, Senses

  "Life of Phocion". Book by Plutarch. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

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• It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.

  Anaxagoras

  Lost, Lost Me

  30 Copy quote

• What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, art, and poetry, in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Greek

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.150, Harvard University Press

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• Mars, when guilty of homicide, and set free from the charge of murder by the Athenians through favour, lest he should appear to be too fierce and savage, committed adultery with Venus.

  Lactantius

  Savages, Mars, Venus

  Lactantius (2012). “The Sacred Writings of Lactantius (Annotated Edition)”, p.40, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Eutrapelia . "A happy and gracious flexibility," Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.

  Matthew Arnold

  Mind, Quality, Prejudice

  "Irish Essays. A Speech at Eton" by Matthew Arnold, 1882.

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• The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.

  Thucydides

  Character, Successful, Two

  Thucydides (1978). “The history of the Peloponnesian War: illustrated with maps from the 1820 Oxford edition”

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• So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done.
  [Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]

  Francois Rabelais

  Wisdom, Events, Done

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• O Athenians, what toil do I undergo to please you!

  Alexander the Great

  Toil, Pleasure, Please

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations V2: Drawn From The Speech And Literature Of All Nations, Ancient And Modern (1922)". Book by Kate Louise Roberts, 2010.

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• The Athenians regularly maintained a number of degraded and useless beings at the public expense; and when any calamity, such as plague, drought, or famine, befell the city, they sacrificed two of these outcast scapegoats.

  James G. Frazer

  Cities, Two, Numbers

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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