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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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Edith Hamilton
Age: 95 †
Born: 1867
Born: August 12
Died: 1963
Died: May 31
Author
Classical Scholar
Historian
Mythographer
Teacher
Writer
Elbflorenz
Hamilton
Edith
Today
Characteristic
Think
Inability
Thinking
Characteristics
Like
Arguing
People
Caught
Disinclination
Almost
Unintelligible
Literature
Argues
Clear
Distinguishes

More quotes by 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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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.
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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The Old Testament is the record of men's conviction that God speaks directly to men.
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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Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history.
Edith Hamilton
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There is a field where all wonderful perfections of microscope and telescope fail, all exquisite niceties of weights and measures, as well as that which is behind them, the keen and driving power of the mind. No facts however indubitably detected, no effort of reason however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach's music is beautiful.
Edith Hamilton
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The easy way has never in the long run commanded the allegiance of mankind.
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)
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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The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium.
Edith Hamilton
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Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.
Edith Hamilton
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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.
Edith Hamilton
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It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought-that is to be educated.
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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A people's literature is the great text-book for real knowledge of them.
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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A tendency to exaggeration was a Roman trait.
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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There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
Edith Hamilton