Antiquity Quotes

• Conservatism... offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Preparation, Redress, Conservatism

  'Coningsby' (1844) bk. 2, ch. 5

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• Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.

  Plato

  Beauty, Inspirational Life, Simple

  Plato (2012). “The Republic and Other Works”, p.89, Anchor

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• Antiquity! I like its ruins better than its reconstructions.

  Joseph Joubert

  Ruins, Reconstruction

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• It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Doe, Pay, Intellect

  "Due Reverence: Antiques in the Possession of the American Philosophical Society". Book by Murphy D. Smith (p. 3), 1992.

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• Study the past if you would define the future. I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

  Confucius

  Educational, Past, Study

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• The wise men of antiquity, when they wished to make the whole world peaceful and happy, first put their own States into proper order. Before putting their States into proper order, they regulated their own families. Before regulating their families, they regulated themselves. Before regulating themselves, they tried to be sincere in their thoughts. Before being sincere in their thoughts, they tried to see things exactly as they really were.

  Confucius

  Wise, Reality, Men

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• I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.

  Stephen Bayley

  Antiques, Certain, Interest

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• The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Taste, Firsts

  "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson". Book by Thomas Jefferson, p. 30, 1904.

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• The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Eye, Soul, Lazy Eyes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2329, Delphi Classics

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• Live in rooms full of light. Avoid heavy food. Be moderate in the drinking of wine. Take massage, baths, exercise, and gymnastics. Fight insomnia with gentle rocking or the sound of running water. Change surroundings and take long journeys. Strictly avoid frightening ideas. Indulge in cheerful conversation and amusements. Listen to music.

  Aulus Cornelius Celsus

  Music, Fitness, Running

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• Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.

  Stephen Greenblatt

  Legacy, Warfare, Force

  Stephen Greenblatt (2011). “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern”, p.86, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Meaningful

  "Theaetetus" by Plato,

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• Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Future, Age, Acquisition

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• It is one proof of a good education and of true refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity.

  Sigourney Weaver

  Family, Feelings, Proof

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• Doctrine once sown strikes deep its root, and respect for antiquity influences all men.

  William Harvey

  Men, Roots, Doctrine

  William Harvey, Edward Jenner (2010). “Scientific Papers: Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology”, p.106, Cosimo, Inc.

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• There is no patent recipe for getting good citizenship. You get it by applying the old, old rules of decent conduct, the rules in accordance with which decent men have had to shape their lives from the beginning .. fundamental precepts, put forth in the Bible and embodied consciously or unconsciously in the code of morals of every great and successful nation from antiquity to modern times.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Successful, Men, Patents

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• Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

  Charles Lamb

  Art, Past, Looks

  Charles Lamb (1860). “Essays of Elia”, p.23

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• Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?

  William Shakespeare

  Time, Eye, Hands

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) act 1, sc. 2, l. [206]

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• Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  World, Want, Contemplation

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• It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Education, Appreciation, Mean

  "Return to Mathematical Circles". Book by Howard Eves, 1988.

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• Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Interesting, Towns, Appearance

  Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1841). “The Idler in France”, p.19

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• The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity .

  Karl Marx

  Doe, Economic, Concepts

  "Grundrisse". Book by Karl Marx, Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, p. 696, 1857-1858.

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• A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Writing, Men

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.38, Penguin

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• In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.

  Xunzi

  Nature, Kings, Men

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• The great age of the earth will appear greater to man when he understands the origin of living organisms and the reasons for the gradual development and improvement of their organization. This antiquity will appear even greater when he realizes the length of time and the particular conditions which were necessary to bring all the living species into existence. This is particularly true since man is the latest result and present climax of this development, the ultimate limit of which, if it is ever reached, cannot be known.

  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

  Science, Men, Organization

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