Alexandria Quotes

• When I think of the library of Alexandria and of the fact that, although it burnt down, people continue to sort the letters of the alphabet according to that tradition, then that makes certain expressions of modernity, even of interventions on the textual level, possible.

  Alexander Kluge

  Thinking, Expression, People

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• There are only two rules. One is E. M. Forster's guide to Alexandria; the best way to know Alexandria is to wander aimlessly. The second is from the Psalms; grin like a dog and run about through the city.

  Jan Morris

  Running, Dog, Travel

  63 Copy quote

• Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. by Saint Philo of Alexandria

  Philo

  Truth, Freedom, Fighting

  64 Copy quote

• Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater.

  Stacy Schiff

  Rome, Play, Ambitious

  "Interview with Stacy Schiff, author of 'Cleopatra'". Interview with John McMurtrie, www.sfgate.com. December 5, 2010.

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• When I wrote 'The Alexandria Link,' I discovered that we are only aware of about 10 percent of the knowledge of the ancient world. In the ancient world, most of the knowledge was destroyed. Every emperor of China who came in wiped out everything that came before them, to the point that the country completely forgot its past.

  Steve Berry

  Country, Past, World

  56 Copy quote

• If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.

  Clement of Alexandria

  Inspirational, Hope, Cheer

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• We need to return to the cosmopolitanism of Alexandria of yore, and marry that with the tolerance and democracy of Europe today

  Ismail Serageldin

  Europe, Tolerance, Democracy

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• Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

  Hypatia

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Philosophy

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• Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

  C.P. Cavafy

  Goodbye, Dream, Long

  Constantine P. Cavafy, “The God Abandons Anthony”

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• If the Library of Alexandria was the emblem of our ambition of omniscience, the Web is the emblem of our ambition of omnipresence; the library that contained everything has become the library that contains anything.

  Alberto Manguel

  Ambition, Library, Emblems

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• In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. The early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone.

  George Sarton

  Real, Men, Degrees

  "A History of Science". Book by George Sarton. Volume 2: "Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C.", Preface, 1959.

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• We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Christian, Moving, Fall

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• I haven't come to you only to take , I haven't come to you empty handed : I bring you poetry as great as yours but in anther tongue , I bring you black eyes and golden skin and curly hair , I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways

  Ahdaf Soueif

  Eye, Sunshine, Hair

  Ahdaf Soueif (1999). “In the Eye of the Sun”, p.512, A&C Black

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• Three classes inhabited the city (Alexandria in Egypt): first the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not inclined to civil life; and secondly the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable...; and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others, for even though they were a mixed people, still they were Greeks by origin and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks.

  Strabo

  Cities, Egypt, Class

  14 Copy quote

• I've been doing the 'Sherman's Lagoon' strip for about 18 years, and I was a political cartoonist before that for my hometown paper in Alexandria, Va.

  Jim Toomey

  Years, Political, Lagoons

  9 Copy quote

• Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learning? She was torn to pieces by a mob of incensed Christians not because she was a woman, but because her learning was so profound, her skills at dialectic so extensive that she reduced all who queried her to embarrassed silence. They could not argue with her, so they murdered her.

  Iain Pears

  Christian, Skills, Profound

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.49, Penguin

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• We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost, but also that much of it can be collected again; we can learn from its splendid ambition that what was one man's experience can become, through the alchemy of words, the experience of all, and how that experience, distilled once again into words, can serve each singular reader for some secret, singular purpose.

  Alberto Manguel

  Ambition, Men, Imagination

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.36, Vintage Canada

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• Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation.

  Carl Sagan

  Greek, Humanity, Library

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13]". TV series, 1990.

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• At the time of Caliph Omar's invasion of Egypt, the Arab officer on duty in the destruction of the library of Alexandria used two stamps with which he marked the books. One said: 'Does not agree with the Koran - heretic, must be burned'. The other said: 'Agrees with the Koran - superfluous, must be burned'.

  Nils Kjaer

  Book, Two, Egypt

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• At that time the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.

  Edward Gibbon

  Men, Blood, Hands

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V3: the History Focus”, p.48, 谷月社

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• The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages.

  Edward Gibbon

  Religious, Regret, Years

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.96, Modern Library

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• Black men of Carthage, Ethiopia, of Timbuktu and Alexandria gave the likes of civilization to this world

  Marcus Garvey

  Men, Civilization, Black

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• All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.

  Hypatia

  Women, Self, Religion

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• I always enjoyed playing around Washington, because we always have a good crowd. I've never had a bad crowd in this vicinity from here [Alexandria], up to Washington and on to right around Baltimore. They've been some good fans.

  Ralph Stanley

  Fans, Crowds, Baltimore

  Source: brightestyoungthings.com

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• Dinocrates did not leave the king, but followed him into Egypt. There Alexander, observing a harbor rendered safe by nature, an excellent center for trade, cornfields throughout all Egypt, and the great usefulness of the mighty river Nile, ordered him to build the city of Alexandria, named after the king. This was how Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Kings, Egypt, Cities

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book II, Introduction, Section 4,

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