Quotes by Greek Authors - Page 12

The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
Socrates
Whom the gods love dies young
Menander
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength, Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way, In golden glory, like some strange new sun...
Aeschylus
Every integral man has inside him, in his heart of hearts, a mystic center around which all else revolves. This mystic whirling lends unity to his thoughts and actions; it helps him find or invent the cosmic harmony. For some this center is love, for others kindness or beauty, others the thirst for knowledge or the longing for gold and power. They examine the relative value of all else and subordinate it to this central passion.
Nikos Kazantzakis
As long as our ideas are the same, we will never be apart.
G.I. Gurdjieff
I tried to establish order over the chaos of my imagination, but this essence, the same that presented itself to me still hazily when I was a child, has always struck me as the very heart of truth. It is our duty to set ourselves an end beyond our individual concerns, beyond our convenient, agreeable habits, higher than our own selves, and disdaining laughter, hunger, even death, to toil night and day to attain that end. No, not to attain it. The self-respecting soul, as soon as he reaches his goal, places it still further away. Not to attain it, but never to halt in the ascent. Only thus does life acquire nobility and oneness.
Nikos Kazantzakis
The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.
Epicurus
The wisest men follow their own direction.
Euripides
Lower those sable eyes regarding me,Lower them, my jewel; they are flogging me. (Report to Greco)
N. Kazantzakis
Imagine that the keeper of a huge, strong beast notices what makes it angry, what it desires, how it has to be approached and handled, the circumstances and the conditions under which it becomes particularly fierce or calm, what provokes its typical cries, and what tones of voice make it gentle or wild. Once he's spent enough time in the creature's company to acquire all this information, he calls it knowledge, forms it into a systematic branch of expertise, and starts to teach it, despite total ignorance, in fact, about which of the creature's attitudes and desires is commendable or deplorable, good or bad, moral or immoral. His usage of all these terms simply conforms to the great beast's attitudes, and he describes things as good or bad according to its likes and dislikes, and can't justify his usage of the terms any further, but describes as right and good the things which are merely indispensable, since he hasn't realised and can't explain to anyone else how vast a gulf there is between necessity and goodness.
Plato
Soon all of you immortalsWill be as dead as we are! Come on then, what are you waiting for?Have you run out of thunderbolts?
Euripides
Life's true face is the skull.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Forgetting himself for a moment, Francis brought his hand out from under his frock in order to bless the multitude. When the people saw his wound they bellowed madly. The women dashed forward with mantles outstretched to catch the drops; the men thrust in their hands and anointed their faces with blood. The villagers' expressions grew savage, and so did their souls. They longed to be able to tear the Saint limb from limb in order for each of them to claim a mouthful of his flesh, for they wanted to make him their own, to have him enter them so that they could become one with a saint—could be sanctified. Blind rage had overpowered them; their eyes were leaden, their lips ringed with froth.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Madness, Brother Masseo, is the salt which prevents good sense from rotting.
Nikos Kazantzakis
You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Give me one manfrom among ten thousandif he is the best
Heraclitus
United you will be more than a match for your enemies. But if you quarrel and separate, your weakness will put you at the mercy of those who attack you.
Aesop
Gradually, I began to understand that it does not matter very much what problem, whether big or small, is tormenting us; the only thing that matters is that we be tormented. In other words, that we exercise our minds in order to keep certainty from turning us into idiots, that we fight to open every closed door we find in front of us. (Report to Greco)
N. Kazantzakis
No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
Socrates
To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.
Socrates
The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things.
Plato
By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.
Socrates
If Da Vinci had to tweet 5 times a day, we’d still be riding bicycles.
Natasha Tsakos
We are not here to question the possible,we are here to challenge the impossible
Natasha Tsakos
If then we have angels, let us be sober, as though we were in the presence of tutors; for there is a demon present also.
John Chrysostom
A shrink and a patient switching places. Who is REALLY the boss?
Mary Papas
I had taken up my quill to begin writing many times before now, but I always abandoned it quickly: each time I was overcome with fear. Yes, may God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons—and dangerous! You open the inkwell, release them: they run off—and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper—black, with tails and horns. You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please. Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep within your bowels, to come forth and speak to mankind.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war.
Thucydides
But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.
Plato
this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others,
Plato
virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue.
Plato
a life without investigation is not worth living
Plato
It’s about running wild in a field of exclamation points chasing question marks
Natasha Tsakos
He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.
Epicurus
Any day stands equal to the rest.
Heraclitus
I don't mind having to die now, for I see that he is the cause of my death is about to share the same fate.
Aesop
By Hecate, the goddess I worship more than all the others, the one I choose to help me in this work, who lives with me deep inside my home, these people won't bring pain into my heart and laugh about it.
Euripides
The only way to gall and fret effectively is for yourself to be a good and honest man.
Diogenes of Sinope
She would keep playing the role of the winner as long as the audience believed her.
Mary Papas
You need to take some acting classes to learn to hide your huge crush on my husband better
Mary Papas
-Cheap? I could have bought a whole pig with that coin jester. -Exactly my Lord. And while some may eat a mule, no one can ride a pig.
Angelo Tsanatelis
The difference between an ignorant fool shoveling manure in a bullpen, and a fool with a PhD, is that the fool with the PhD can shovel more of it, faster.
Dimitris Mita
I want to tell you something but good tasteRestrains me
Sappho van Lesbos
Mister if you want more to join,’ She said half-choked ‘you’ll have to put in the coin.
Angelo Tsanatelis
It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.
Plato
Gone is the trust to be placed in oaths; I cannot understand if the gods you swore by then no longer rule, or men live by new standards of what is right.
Euripides
When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.
Nikos Kazantzakis
The Sun is bad enough even while he is single, drying up our marshes with his heat as he does. But what will become of us if he marries and and begets other suns?
Aesop
They say "doubt everything," but I disagree. Doubt is useful in small amounts, but too much of it leads to apathy and confusion. No, don't doubt everything. QUESTION everything. That's the real trick. Doubt is just a lack of certainty. If you doubt everything, you'll doubt evolution, science, faith, morality, even reality itself - and you'll end up with nothing, because doubt doesn't give anything back. But questions have answers, you see. If you question everything, you'll find that a lot of what we believe is untrue...but you might also discover that some things ARE true. You might discover what your own beliefs are. And then you'll question them again, and again, eliminating flaws, discovering lies, until you get as close to the truth as you can.Questioning is a lifelong process. That's precisely what makes it so unlike doubt. Questioning engages with reality, interrogating all it sees. Questioning leads to a constant assault on the intellectual status quo, where doubt is far more likely to lead to resigned acceptance. After all, when the possibility of truth is doubtful (excuse the pun), why not simply play along with the most convenient lie?Questioning is progress, but doubt is stagnation.
Tom Jubert / Jonas Kyratzes
I know that our world is going through a very difficult time right now, but I will never lose my faith in humanity, and our incredible ability to overcome just about anything.
Yanni
He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest.
Diogenes Laërtius
I read your diary. I KNOW.
Mary Papas
The only man she ever loved. And hated.
Mary Papas
Somebody told me I'm a writer. I believed them. Now I regret it.
Stefanos Livos
His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.
Aeschylus
Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.
Epicurus
We can't escape history, anymore than we can recapture it." Master Kai
Eleni Papanou
In Unity we can be enslaved, and in Unity we can also come together as individuals." Old Woman
Eleni Papanou
I am smart because I know I nothing.
Plato
I know that I know nothing
Plato