Best 48 quotes in «athens quotes» category

I want to see the Parthenon by moonlight.' I had my way. They floodlight it now, to great advantage I am told, but it was not so then, and since it was late in the year there were few tourists. My companions were all intelligent men, including my own husband, and they had the sense to stay mute. I suppose, being a woman, I confuse beauty with sentiment, but, as I looked on the Parthenon for the first time in my life, I found myself crying. It had never happened to me before. Your sunset weepers I despise. It was not full moon, or anywhere near it. The half circle put me in mind of the labrys, the Cretan double axe, and the pillars were the most ghostly in consequence. What a shock for the modern aesthete, I thought when my crying was done, if he could see the ruddy glow of colour, the painted eyes, the garish lips, the orange-reds and blues that were there once, and Athene herself a giantess on her pedestal touched by the rising sun. Even in those distant times the exigencies of a state religion had brought their own traffic, the buying and selling of doves, of trinkets: to find himself, a man had to go to the woods, to the hills. "Come on," said Stephen. "It's beautiful and stark, if you like, but so is St. Pancras station at 4 A.M. It depends on your association of ideas." We crammed into Burns's small car, and went back to our hotel. ("The Chamois")

An ancient tradition declares that every idiot blunder we pass into law will sooner or later redound to Athens' profit.

Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grandson of Orneus, and the great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have affected popularity and ingratiated himself with the multitude, stirred up and exasperated the most eminent men of the city, who had long borne a secret grudge to Theseus, conceiving that he had robbed them of their several little kingdoms and lordships, and, having pent them all up in one city, was using them as his subjects and slaves. He put also the meaner people into commotion, telling them, that, deluded with a mere dream of liberty, though indeed they were deprived both of that and of their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and gracious kings of their own, they had given themselves up to be lorded over by a new-comer and a stranger.

There were nights for instance, especially in August, where the view of the full moon from the top of the Acropolis hill or from a high terrace could steal your breath away. The moon would slide over the clouds like a seducing princess dressed in her finest silvery silk. And the sky would be full of stars that trembled feebly, like servants that bowed before her. During those nights under the light of the August full moon, the city of Athens would become an enchanted kingdom that slept lazily under the sweet light of its ethereal mistress.

Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me.

Periclean Greeks employed the term idiotis, without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect the idiocy of politicization—of the professional pol and power broker. The two idiocies make a perfect match, with the apathy of the first permitting the depredations of the second.

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.

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

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes To seek new friends and stranger companies.

Athens, much like Austin, is a difficult music scene. There are so many musicians there that it is hard to get gigs and hard for people to take you seriously.

Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

Athens will again be the host of the Games in 2004, but there are rumors that they might be switched if the Greeks don't begin to construct the sites faster.

Aristotle was but a wreck of an Adam, and Athens but the rubbish of an Eden. How completely sin has defaced the divine image in man! That man has lost his righteousness and happiness is clearly evident as we look at the state of the world today!

Athens was a great experience and I'll always be able to look back on it and say I achieved my ultimate goal in gymnastics.

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.

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

Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.

He could very likely have appealed for leniency. At least he could have saved his life by agreeing to leave Athens. But had he done this he would not have been Socrates. He valued his conscience--and the truth-- higher than life.

If I had engaged in politics, O men of Athens, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself.

If Athens shall appear great to you, consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty.

It certainly is an embarrassing fact, then, for certain classical scholars to have to face, that the Platonic Academy continued to function in Athens for over nine hundred years.

If many people follow your enthusiastic endeavours, perhaps a new Athens might be created in the land of the Franks, or rather a much better one.

I knew very little or nothing about the Olympics. Having qualified was itself a big achievement for me, and then being there was quite overwhelming. Although I lost in the opening round, but the fact that I fought well was enough for me to take away from Athens.

In cities like Athens, poor houses lined narrow and tortuous streets in spite of luxurious public buildings.

The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.

I took a lot of bad things after Athens. I just learnt to deal with it. The problem was beforehand I had this feeling where I was trying to please everybody - I wanted everybody to like me.

It was appointed by law in Athens, that the obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle should be performed at the public expense, and in the most honorable manner.

That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor.

I would like to be a philosopher in ancient Athens and a poet in ancient China.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

My worst holiday was in Athens when I was a young drama student at Rada in 1965. I ran out of money. I had my things stolen and I wasn't able to speak a word of the language.

People aren't familiar with wheelchair sports. The only film crew in Athens for the Paralympics was the documentary crew.

So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.

Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds.

The Parthenon is really only a farmyard over which someone put a roof; colonades and sculptures were added because there were people in Athens who happened to be working and wanted to express themselves.

The Olympic Games of the Modern Era began in 1896 in the city of Athens.

There is in fact a true law namely right reason, which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal. ... It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law eternal and unchangeable binding all times and upon all peoples.

When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.

The way some German politicians have lashed out at Greece when the country fell into the crisis has left deep wounds there. I was just as shocked by the banners of protesters in Athens that showed the German chancellor in a Nazi uniform.

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem.

When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map.

better not bring up a lion inside your city, But if you must, then humour all his moods.

Across the distance, the Acropolis museum cradled within its protective walls its legendary treasures, lulling them to a peaceful sleep under the eerie light from the heavens. Yet, through the large window, the five Caryatids stood alert on their strong platform. The ageless maidens with the long braided hair down their backs remained awake even at this hour gazing across to the Acropolis, full of nostalgia for their sacred home. Inside their marble chests, they nurtured as always, precious hope for the return of their long lost sister.

Athènes devint à partir de 450 avant Jésus-Christ la capitale culturelle du monde grec. La philosophie aussi prit un nouveau tournant. Les philosophes de la nature étaient avant tout des hommes de science qui s'intéressaient à l'analyse physique du monde et, à ce titre, ils tiennent une place importante dans l'histoire de la science. Mais, à Athènes, l'étude de la nature fut supplantée par celle de l'homme et sa place dans la société. Petit à petit, une démocratie avec des assemblées du peuple et des juges populaires vit le jour. Une condition sine qua non pour l'établissement de la démocratie était que le peuple fût assez éclairé pour pouvoir participer au processus démocratique. Qu'une jeune démocratie exige une certaine éducation du peuple, nous l'avons bien vu de nos jours.

Distinguishing Marks Every land has its distinguishing mark. Particular to Thessaly are horsemanship and horses; what marks a Spartan is war's season; Media has its tables with their dishes; hair marks the Celts, the Assyrians have beards. But the marks that distinguish Athens are Mankind and the Word.

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.

In the midst of the heavy, hot fragrance of summer, and of the clean salty smell of the sea, there was the odor of wounded men, a sickly odor of blood and antiseptics which marked the zone of every military hospital. All Athens quickly took on that odor, as the wounded Greek soldiers were moved out of hospitals and piled into empty warehouses to make way for German wounded. Now every church, every empty lot, every school building in Athens is full of wounded, and on the pathways of Zappion, the park in the heart of Athens, bandaged men in makeshift wheel chairs are to be seen wherever one walks. Zappion is a profusion of flowers, heavy-scented luxurious flowers; but even the flower fragrance is not as strong as that of blood.

Everything we know and believe about deity and divinity nowadays, is a direct origin of old civilizations. Everybody, Greeks, Saxons, Assyrians and Soumerians, all imitate the ancient ways of the first tribes of central Africa (Mason father to his son in "The Omniconstant