Athenians Quotes

• I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

  Diogenes

  Book, Patriotic, Beer

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• When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

  Edith Hamilton

  Freedom, Responsibility, Libertarian Party

  Edith Hamilton (1964). “The Ever-Present Past”

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• Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence.

  John Milton

  Mother, Art, Eye

  Paradise Regained bk. 4, l. 240 (1671)

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• The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.

  Thucydides

  War, Growth, Alarms

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

  Robert South

  Athens, Paradise, Rubbish

  'Sermons' vol. 1, no. 2

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• At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

  Alcuin

  Wise, Men, Stupid People

  30 Copy quote

• How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

  Alexander the Great

  Winning, Names, Athens

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• An Athenian citizen does not neglect his state because he takes care of his own household; even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We do not regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs as harmless. We do not say that such a man 'minds his own business'. Rather we say he has no business here at all.

  Pericles

  Dark, Men, Ideas

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• Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you.

  Plato

  Love You, Men, And Love

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• The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

  Themistocles

  Son, Wife, Greek

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• We Athenians hold that it is not poverty that is disgraceful but the failure to struggle against it.

  Pericles

  Struggle, Poverty, Poor

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• Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.

  Plutarch

  Dog, Cutting, Tails

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211

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• Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

  Plutarch

  Criminals, Might, Fool

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.211

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• If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts.

  Albert J. Nock

  Strong, Plato, Character

  "Isaiah's Job". The Atlantic Monthly, June 1936.

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• Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

  David Hume

  Teacher, Passion, Reflection

  David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.127, tredition

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• This was the Athenians' war against the King of Macedon, a war of words. Words are the only weapons the Athenians have left.

  Livy

  Kings, War, History

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• Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."

  Plutarch

  Rage, Said, Senses

  "Life of Phocion". Book by Plutarch. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

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• It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.

  Anaxagoras

  Lost, Lost Me

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• Our society is falling back increasingly on rampant consumerism and self-promoting social media as a way for people to feel that their lives matter - self-centered means of numbing the questions of mattering. Culture has relapsed back into the self-aggrandizing, glorifying answers that the Athenians had presumed, which had Socrates railing against them until he got so annoying that they killed him.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Fall, Mean, Self

  "Interview With Rebecca Goldstein on Plato at the Googleplex, Philosophy for the Public, and Everything". Interview with Ophelia Benson, www.butterfliesandwheels.org. March 20, 2014.

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• We have the ability to be the Athens of modern times as opposed to the militaristic Sparta. I remind you that the Athenians wrote poetry. The Spartans did not.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Sparta, Athens, Modern

  Rita Mae Brown (1987). “Poems”

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• To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Believe, Men, Touching

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• So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done.
  [Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]

  Francois Rabelais

  Wisdom, Events, Done

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• In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Character, Passion, Citizens

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.301, Hackett Publishing

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• Imperialism was genuinely popular among Athenians who would expect to share in its profits, even if only indirectly and collectively, and not to have to bear its burdens.

  John Roberts

  Bears, Imperialism, Burden

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• The great thing about writing about the ancient Spartans or Athenians is that so much knowledge is no longer extant that no one, except maybe a Cambridge or Oxford don, can call you out and prove you wrong.

  Steven Pressfield

  Writing, Oxford, Ancient

  Interview with Will Duquette, www.patheos.com. May 21, 2014.

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