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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

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Edith Hamilton
Age: 95 †
Born: 1867
Born: August 12
Died: 1963
Died: May 31
Author
Classical Scholar
Historian
Mythographer
Teacher
Writer
Elbflorenz
Hamilton
Edith
Liberty
Responsibility
Literature
Freedom
Athenians
Free
Athens
Never
Ceased
Wished
Libertarian

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They were the first Westerners. The spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world.
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Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history.
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Myths are early science, the result of men's first trying to explain what they saw around them.
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sooner or later, if the activity of the mind is restricted anywhere it will cease to function even where it is allowed to be free.
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Reality has actually very little to do with truth there is no necessary connection between the two.
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...a chasm opened in the earth and out of it coal-black horses sprang, drawing a chariot and driven by one who had a look of dark splendor, majestic and beautiful and terrible. He caught her to him and held her close. The next moment she was being borne away from the radiance of earth in springtime to the world of the dead by the king who rules it.
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The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium.
Edith Hamilton
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Uncertainty is the prerequisite to gaining knowledge and frequently the result as well.
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Tell one your thoughts, but beware of two. All know what is known to three
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It is not hard work that is dreary it is superficial work.
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One form of religion perpetually gives way to another if religion did not change it would be dead. ... Each time the new ideas appear they are seen at first as a deadly foe threatening to make religion perish from the earth but in the end there is a deeper insight and a better life with ancient follies and prejudices gone.
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Freedom was born in Greece because there men limited their own freedom. ... The limits to action established by law were a mere nothing compared to the limits established by a man's free choice.
Edith Hamilton
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Love and the Soul (for that is what Psyche means) had sought and, after sore trials, found each other and that union could never be broken. (Cupid and Psyche)
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When I read educational articles it often seems to me that this important side of the matter, the purely personal side, is not emphasized enough the fact that it is so much more agreeable and interesting to be an educated person than not. The sheer pleasure of being educated does not seem to be stressed.
Edith Hamilton
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He was there beside her, yet she was far away from him, aone with her outraged love and her ruined life.
Edith Hamilton
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The comedy of each age holds up a mirror to the people of that age, a mirror that is unique.
Edith Hamilton
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All things are at odds when God sets a thinker loose on the planet
Edith Hamilton
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The fundamental facts about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priest had said, Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought. The Greeks said, All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought.
Edith Hamilton
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Moderately wise each one should be, Not overwise, for a wise man's heart Is seldom glad (Norse Wisdom)
Edith Hamilton
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A people's literature is the great text-book for real knowledge of them.
Edith Hamilton