{"quotes":[{"text":"In accepting and defending the social institution of slavery, the Greeks were harder-hearted than we but clearer-headed; they knew that labor as such is slavery, and that no man can feel a personal pride in being a laborer. A man can be proud of being a worker – someone, that is, who fabricates enduring objects, but in our society, the process of fabrication has been so rationalized in the interests of speed, economy and quantity that the part played by the individual factory employee has become too small for it to be meaningful to him as work, and practically all workers have been reduced to laborers. It is only natural, therefore, that the arts which cannot be rationalized in this way – the artist still remains personally responsible for what he makes – should fascinate those who, because they have no marked talent, are afraid, with good reason, that all they have to look forward to is a lifetime of meaningless labor. This fascination is not due to the nature of art itself, but to the way in which an artists works; he, and in our age, almost nobody else, is his own master. The idea of being one’s own master appeals to most human beings, and this is apt to lead to the fantastic hope that the capacity for artistic creation is universal, something nearly all human beings, by virtue, not by some special talent, but due to their humanity, could do if they tried.","author":"W.H. Auden","tags":["art","greeks","labor","slavery","work"],"id":13668,"author_id":"W.H.+Auden"},{"text":"...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.].","author":"John Adams","tags":["celts","chaldeans","clergy","greeks","hindu","hinduism","islam","knowledge","monopoly","muslim","persians","priesthood","priests","protestant","reformation","romans","science-vs-religion","sect","teutons"],"id":86477,"author_id":"John+Adams"},{"text":"To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.","author":"Oscar Wilde","tags":["body","clothing","greeks","humor","soul","wilde"],"id":102574,"author_id":"Oscar+Wilde"},{"text":"Hero,” said Machaon to his sister who was still muttering to her gods. “Please stop. Surely the gods would have heard you by now … let’s try not to annoy them.","author":"Sulari Gentill","tags":["annoy","gods","greek","greek-gods","greek-mythology","greek-myths","greek-tragedy","greeks","hero","prayer","praying","stop","trojan-war","trojans"],"id":122387,"author_id":"Sulari+Gentill"},{"text":"I have read in some of the old histories that in early times the Greeks did not know how to write until two men, one of whom was called Cadmus (Qatmus) and the other Aghanūn, came from Egypt bringing sixteen letters with which the Greeks wrote. Then one of these two men derived four other letters, also used for writing. Later, another man named Simonides (Simūnidus) derived four additional ones, making twenty-four. It was in those days that Socrates (Suqrātīs) appeared.","author":"Ibn Al-Nadim","tags":["cadmus","greeks","language"],"id":125255,"author_id":"Ibn+Al-Nadim"},{"text":"He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest.","author":"Diogenes Laërtius","tags":["contenders","contest","greeks","irony","judge","life","skill"],"id":154416,"author_id":"Diogenes+La%C3%ABrtius"},{"text":"He has been known to devour men.” “He’s a cannibal?” Cadmus asked in horror. “Well, not really,” Daemon replied. “He is a Cyclops. He does not eat his own kind — just men and only those who challenge him … he does not hunt them.","author":"Sulari Gentill","tags":["cannibal","cannibalism","challenge","cyclopes","cyclops","devour","greek","greek-gods","greek-mythology","greek-myths","greeks","polyphemus","polyphemus-island","posideon","son-of-posideon"],"id":169698,"author_id":"Sulari+Gentill"},{"text":"Somebody should have warned the Trojans. Beware of gifts bearing Greeks.","author":"David Gerrold","tags":["gifts","greeks","trojan-horse"],"id":188299,"author_id":"David+Gerrold"},{"text":"The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated ... The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyod the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.","author":"Pierre-Simon Laplace","tags":["greeks","mathematicians","mathematics","nullity","numbers","zero"],"id":242128,"author_id":"Pierre-Simon+Laplace"},{"text":"The American Club was for those who preferred to have dinner at six and brunch on a Sunday and avoid the stress of dealing with Greeks and their language.","author":"John Mole","tags":["americans","culture","foreigners","greeks"],"id":244517,"author_id":"John+Mole"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":22,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}