Antiquity Quotes - Page 5

• Practice is the best of all instructors.

  Publilius Syrus

  Perseverance, Teaching, School

  "The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave: From the Latin". Book by Darius Lyman. Maxim 439, 1856.

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• Teach nothing new, but instill into all men's breasts those things which the Fathers of revered memory have with harmony of statement taught... Preach nothing else than what we received from our forefathers... Accordingly, both in the rule of faith and in the observance of discipline, let the standard of antiquity be maintained throughout.

  Pope Leo I

  Memories, Father, Men

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• A house that has a library in it has a soul.

  Plato

  Healing, Thought Provoking, House

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• This freedom of political discussion on the highest level is something which Western civilization has in common with that of classical antiquity, but with no other

  Christopher Dawson

  Civilization, Political, Levels

  Christopher Dawson (2010). “The Crisis of Western Education (The Works of Christopher Dawson)”, p.95, CUA Press

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• But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. How can we know what antiquity was except through the Church? ... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. ... The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour.

  Henry Edward Manning

  Voice, Church, May

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• If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.. ...(they) express something real and existing in ourselves.

  Mark Rothko

  Real, Fall, Ideas

  Mark Rothko (1997). “Mark Rothko”, Stewart Tabori & Chang

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• Antiquity was often delighted to cast a halo of mythical glory around its illustrious names. The immortal works of this great philosopher seemed to entitle him to more than mortal honors. A legend into the authenticity of which we will abstain from inquiring, asserted that his mother, Perictione, a pure virgin, suffered an immaculate conception through the influence of Apollo. The god declared to Ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage of the child.

  John William Draper

  Mother, Children, Names

  John William Draper (1876). “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe”, p.151

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• The countries the most famous and the most respected of antiquity are those which distinguished themselves by promoting and patronizing science, and on the contrary those which neglected or discouraged it are universally denominated rude and barbarous.

  Thomas Paine

  Country, Rude, Atheism

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• In antiquity slaves were, in all honesty called slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are called wage earners.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Honesty, Names, Age

  Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1980). “Bakunin on anarchism”

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• Today Eratosthenes' method [of calculating the circumference of the earth] seems almost banal... yet it is inaccessible to prescientific civilizations, and in all of Antiquity not a single Latin author succeeded in stating it coherently.

  Lucio Russo

  Latin, Civilization, Earth

  "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn". Book by Lucio Russo, 2004.

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• We have a mistaken notion of antiquity, calling that so which in truth is the world's nonage.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Calling, World, Truth Is

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• In matters pertaining to the care of life there has been no marked gain over Greek and Roman antiquity.

  Mary Ritter Beard

  Greek, Care, Matter

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• The great men of antiquity were poor.

  Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

  Men, Great Men, Poor

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• An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established--the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.

  David Hume

  Government, Infinite, Reason

  David Hume, Knud Haakonssen (1994). “Hume: Political Essays”, p.221, Cambridge University Press

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• If antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble thing ... The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Food, Cooking, Noble

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• The life of famous men was more glorious in antiquity; the life of obscure men is happier with the moderns.

  Madame de Stael

  Men, Eras, Obscure

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• In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.

  Joseph Conrad

  Book, Garden, Orange

  Joseph Conrad (2000). “Lord Jim and Nostromo: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.411, Modern Library

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• The volumes of antiquity, like medals, may very well serve to amuse the curious, but the works of the moderns, like the current coin of a kingdom, are much better for immediate use.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  May, Kingdoms, Use

  Oliver Goldsmith, Henry George Bohn (1848). “Works: With a Life and Notes”, p.218

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• The Italian historian Armando Petrucci has done more than anyone else to revive interest in public writing. His groundbreaking Public Lettering: Script, Power, and Culture surveys the forms and uses of epigraphic writing from classical antiquity to the twentieth century.

  Geoffrey Nunberg

  Writing, Italian, Use

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• Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Philosophy, Book, Eye

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• Such discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man.

  Charles Lyell

  Men, Discovery, Caves

  Charles Lyell (2005). “The Geological Evidence of Man”, p.49, Cosimo, Inc.

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• To find yourself, think for yourself.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

  Theophrastus

  Inspirational, Basketball, Time

  Theophrastus (1904). “The characters of Theophrastus”

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• Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.

  Carl Jung

  Astrology, Psychology, Recognition

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• The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.

  John Milton

  Character, Past, Men

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