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A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.

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
Matter
Called
Creative
Word
Words
Fossil
Language
Fossils
Light
Symbol
Thought
Symbols
Truth
Poetry

More quotes by Edith Hamilton

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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.
Edith Hamilton
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The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium.
Edith Hamilton
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Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.
Edith Hamilton
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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.
Edith Hamilton
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Pain is the most individualized thing on earth. It is true that it is the great common bond as well, but that realization only comes when it is over. To suffer is to be alone. To watch another suffer is to know the barrier that shuts each of us away by himself Only individuals can suffer.
Edith Hamilton
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Uncertainty is the prerequisite to gaining knowledge and frequently the result as well.
Edith Hamilton
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Tell one your thoughts, but beware of two. All know what is known to three
Edith Hamilton
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Myths are early science, the result of men's first trying to explain what they saw around them.
Edith Hamilton
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Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.
Edith Hamilton
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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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Love, however, cannot be forbidden. The more that flame is covered up, the hotter it burns. Also love can always find a way. It was impossible that these two whose hearts were on fire should be kept apart. (Pyramus and Thisbe)
Edith Hamilton
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Reality has actually very little to do with truth there is no necessary connection between the two.
Edith Hamilton
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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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Christ must be rediscovered perpetually.
Edith Hamilton
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Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek name for the man who took no share in public matters.
Edith Hamilton
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Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history.
Edith Hamilton
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Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.
Edith Hamilton
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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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... clear thinking is not the characteristic which distinguishes our literature today. We are more and more caught up by the unintelligible. People like it. This argues an inability to think, or, almost as bad, a disinclination to think.
Edith Hamilton
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A people's literature is the great text-book for real knowledge of them.
Edith Hamilton