Athens Quotes - Page 5

• We are usually told that democracy originated in ancient Athens - like science, or philosophy, it was a Greek invention. It's never entirely clear what this is supposed to mean. Are we supposed to believe that before the Athenians, it never really occurred to anyone, anywhere, to gather all the members of their community in order to make joint decisions in a way that gave everyone equal say?

  David Graeber

  Philosophy, Believe, Mean

  "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology". Book by David Graeber, 2004.

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• Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth.

  Harold Urey

  Cities, Feet, History

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• I always look back to my first Olympic medal in 2004 in Athens. I was very new to the sport, and it was my first big win at the Olympics.

  Allyson Felix

  Sports, Winning, Looks

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• 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

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• Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth and the accidents of his life never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the Academy and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice of Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world and to posterity for the happiness of millions.

  Edward Gibbon

  Retirement, Philosophy, Greatness

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.1005, e-artnow

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• The origins of the modern West are often seen in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but the roots of the Enlightenment can be found in habits of mind cultivated in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, and the institutions that grew from them.

  Ibn Warraq

  Roots, Rome, Mind

  Ibn Warraq (2013). “Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy”, p.48, Encounter Books

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• If I had to choose one which best characterized the condition of being a political leader in Athens, the word would be "tension".

  Moses Finley

  Leader, Political, Would Be

  "Democracy Ancient And Modern". Book by Moses Finley (Second Edition). Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 60, 1985.

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• I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Art, Italian, Turkeys

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.2141, Delphi Classics

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• I decided that I was going to go to the Olympics to see if I had made the right decision to retire because I knew that if I'd made the mistake of retiring I would know during and after those Games in Athens.

  Cathy Freeman

  Motivational, Mistake, Athlete

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• Puppet Papademos is in place, and as Athens caught fire on Sunday night he rather took my breath away - he said violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country.

  Nigel Farage

  Country, Sunday, Night

  "U.K. MEP Gives Epic Warning On Greek Chaos: 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!'" by Jonathon M. Seidl, www.businessinsider.com. February 15, 2012.

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• The Athens Olympics will be meaningful even though I cannot participate as an athlete, since I can participate in the flame relay all over the world.

  Cathy Freeman

  Motivational, Meaningful, Athlete

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• I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.

  Christine Lagarde

  Teaching, School, Kids

  "It's payback time: don't expect sympathy - Lagarde to Greeks" by Larry Elliott, Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. May 25, 2012.

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• Western societies from ancient Athens to imperial Rome to the French republic rarely collapsed because of a shortage of resources or because foreign enemies proved too numerous or formidable in arms - even when those enemies were grim Macedonians or Germans. Rather, in times of peace and prosperity there arose an unreal view of the world beyond their borders, one that was the product of insularity brought about by success, and an intellectual arrogance that for some can be the unfortunate byproduct of an enlightened society.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Views, Rome, Intellectual Arrogance

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• Strategy was first used in Athens (508 BC) to describe the art of leadership used by the ten generals on the war council. Some argue for the more creative, human side, while others argue for the more analytic side of strategy.

  Max McKeown

  Art, War, Creative

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• In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.

  John Ralston Saul

  Giving Up, Sacrifice, Democracy

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• My worst holiday was in Athens when I was a young drama student at Rada in 1965. I ran out of money. I had my things stolen and I wasn't able to speak a word of the language.

  Stephanie Beacham

  Drama, Holiday, Able

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• A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. - Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. - Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens; confounded their statesmen; struck their orators dumb; and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

  Joseph Addison

  Wisdom, Philosophy, Men

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• In Athens I was 17 and I didn't have any expectations. I was just swimming fast and racing everybody. I didn't have the joy after my races in 2007. I didn't want to go to Beijing. I had to for sponsors.

  Laure Manaudou

  Swimming, Race, Expectations

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• If many people follow your enthusiastic endeavours, perhaps a new Athens might be created in the land of the Franks, or rather a much better one.

  Alcuin

  Land, People, Might

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• Coming into tonight, I knew it was going to be a great race, ... In the 400, Laszlo put up a 4:10.1 earlier in the year, and so you expect him to put up a good time in (the 200). I knew Ryan was going to be fast coming off his short course season, and he's improved a lot since Athens, so I just wanted to go out there and relax a bit and go out there and do what I had to do.

  Michael Phelps

  Swimming, Race, Years

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• Baseball, like Pericles' Athens (or any other good society), is simultaneously democratic and aristrocratic. Anyone can enjoy it, but the more you apply yourself, the more you enjoy it.

  George Will

  Baseball, Enjoy, Democratic

  George F. Will (1999). “Bunts”, p.50, Simon and Schuster

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• So Socrates was a kind of gadfly. He was a sort of philosophical urban gorilla hanging around in the middle of Athens, asking these peculiar questions of everybody - important people, young men, slaves - questions that had to do with ultimately what's the life that's worth living. And Plato was one of the young men who hung around him, a very aristocratic young man, came from a very old, important family.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Plato, Philosophical, Men

  "What Do We Have To Teach Plato?". "Here And Now" with Jeremy Hobson, news.stlpublicradio.org. April 22, 2014.

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• I never expected to win three medals in the Athens Olympic Games. Of course, I would rather have won one gold.

  Marian Dragulescu

  Gymnastics, Winning, Games

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• I knew very little or nothing about the Olympics. Having qualified was itself a big achievement for me, and then being there was quite overwhelming. Although I lost in the opening round, but the fact that I fought well was enough for me to take away from Athens.

  Vijender Singh

  Achievement, Facts, Olympics

  "I am happy with my preparations: Vijender Singh". Interview, timesofindia.indiatimes.com. June 29, 2012.

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• It certainly is an embarrassing fact, then, for certain classical scholars to have to face, that the Platonic Academy continued to function in Athens for over nine hundred years.

  Robert K. G. Temple

  Years, Nine, Faces

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