Hellenism Quotes

• Man is the measure of all things.

  Protagoras

  Philosophical, Men, Greek

  Quoted in Plato, Theaetetus

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• The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness ; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience .

  Matthew Arnold

  Ideas, Consciousness, Spontaneity

  Matthew Arnold, Stefan Collini (1993). “Arnold: 'Culture and Anarchy' and Other Writings”, p.20, Cambridge University Press

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• Over the years, I have become convinced that Hellenism as a culture represents not a static condition of uniform sublimity mysteriously achieved and maintained as an effect of some racial advantage. Rather it should be understood as an evolving process, governed by a dynamic of change, as both language and thought underwent transformational alteration caused by a transition from orality to literacy. The instrument of change is discerned to be the invention of the Greek alphabet, at a quite late stage in the history of developing cultures.

  Eric A. Havelock

  Years, Greek, Uniforms

  "Chinese Characters and the Greek Alphabet". Sino-Platonic Papers, Issue no. 5, sino-platonic.org. December 1987.

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• The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost ideas with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting.

  Matthew Arnold

  Thinking, Ideas, Differences

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• It is against their own insoluble problem of being human that the dull and base in humanity are in revolt in anti-Semitism. Judaism, nevertheless, together with Hellenism and Christianity is an inalienable component of our Christian Western civilization, the eternal "call to Sinai" against which humanity again and again rebels.

  Hermann Rauschning

  Christian, Civilization, Humanity

  "The Beast From the Abyss". Book by Hermann Rauschning, pp. 155-156, 1941.

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• How can we prevent this telescoping of cultures and styles from ending up in kitsch eclecticism, a cool hellenism excluding all critical judgment?

  Nicolas Bourriaud

  Style, Culture, Kitsch

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