Edith Hamilton Quotes & Sayings

Myths are early science, the result of men's first trying to explain what they saw around them. — Edith Hamilton

Though the outside of human life changes much, the inside changes little. — Edith Hamilton

An ancient writer says of Homer that he touched nothing without somehow honoring and glorifying it. — Edith Hamilton

The comedy of each age holds up a mirror to the people of that age, a mirror that is unique. — Edith Hamilton

She was brave from excess of grief — Edith Hamilton

When faith is supported by facts or by logic it ceases to be faith. — Edith Hamilton

It is the men of this land who are bloodthirsty and they lay their own guilt on the gods. — Edith Hamilton

Genius moves to creation, not to destruction. Only a very few have combined both. — Edith Hamilton

It may seem odd to say that the men who made the myths disliked the irrational and had a love for facts; but it is true, no matter how wildly fantastic some of the stories are ... — Edith Hamilton

Civilization ... is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the thins of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. Where imponderables, are things of first importance, there is the height of civilization, and, if at the same time, the power of art exists unimpaired, human life has reached a level seldom attained and very seldom surpassed. — Edith Hamilton

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

The Old Testament is the record of men's conviction that God speaks directly to men. — Edith Hamilton

There is no better indication of what the people of any period are like than the plays they go to see. — Edith Hamilton

He was softly breathing his life away, the dark blood flowing down his skin of snow and his eyes growing heavy and dim. She kissed him, but Adonis knew not that she kissed him as he died. — Edith Hamilton

They would allow no woman to be forced to marry against her will they told the newcomers, nor would they surrender any suppliant, no matter how feeble, and no matter how powerful the pursuer. — Edith Hamilton

Ages of faith and of unbelief are always said to mark the course of history. — Edith Hamilton

The mind knows only what lies near the heart. — Edith Hamilton

When we speak of beauty, we're speaking of something we're more or less indifferent to. — Edith Hamilton

All things are at odds when God sets a thinker loose on the planet — Edith Hamilton

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

Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek name for the man who took no share in public matters. — Edith Hamilton

In theology the conservative temper tends to formalism. — Edith Hamilton

Love cannot live where there is no trust. — Edith Hamilton

The suffering of a soul that can suffer greatly
that and only that, is tragedy. — Edith Hamilton

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth. — Edith Hamilton

To the Greeks, the word "character" first referred to the stamp upon a coin. By extension, man was the coin, and the character trait was the stamp imprinted upon him. To them, that trait, for example bravery, was a share of something all mankind had, rather than means of distinguishing one from the whole. — Edith Hamilton

When she came into Venus' presence the goddess laughed aloud and asked her scornfully if she was seeking a husband since the one she had had would have nothing to do with her because he had almost died of the burning wound she had given him. — Edith Hamilton

Tell one your thoughts, but beware of two. All know what is known to three — Edith Hamilton

Uncertainty is the prerequisite to gaining knowledge and frequently the result as well. — Edith Hamilton

None so good that he has no faults, None so wicked that he is worth naught. — Edith Hamilton

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

The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium. — Edith Hamilton

The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next. — Edith Hamilton

Besides Zeus on his throne, Justice has her seat. — Edith Hamilton

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

It is by our power to suffer, above all, that we are of more value than the sparrows. — Edith Hamilton

..,No love cannot leave where there is no trust..,~cupid and psyche..,"Greek mythology of Edith Hamilton — Edith Hamilton

The spiritual world was not to them another world from the natural world. It was the same world as that known to the mind. Beauty and rationality were both manifested in it. They did not see the conclusions reached by the spirit and those reached by the mind as opposed to each other. Reason and feeling were not antagonistic. The truth of poetry and the truth of science were both true. It — Edith Hamilton

Great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within. — Edith Hamilton

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

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is being educated. — Edith Hamilton

In every civilization, life grows easier. Men grow lazier in consequence. We have a picture of what happened to the individual Greek. (I cannot look at history, or at any human action, except as I look at the individual.) The Greeks had good food, good witty talk, pleasant dinner parties; and they were content. When the individual man had reached that condition in Athens, when the thought not of giving to the state but of what the state could give to him, Athens' freedom was doomed. — Edith Hamilton

The temper of mind that sees tragedy in life has not for its opposite the temper that sees joy. The opposite pole to the tragic view of life is the sordid view. — Edith Hamilton

To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful ... was a mark of the Greek spirit ... — Edith Hamilton

Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active. — Edith Hamilton

Egypt is a fertile valley of rich river soil, low-lying, warm, monotonous, a slow-flowing river, and beyond the limitless desert. Greece is a country of sparse fertility and keen, cold winters, all hills and mountains sharp cut in stone, where strong men must work hard to get their bread. And while Egypt submitted and suffered and turned her face toward death, Greece resisted and rejoiced and turned full-face to life. For somewhere among those steep stone mountains, in little sheltered valleys where the great hills were ramparts to defend, and men could have security for peace and happy living, something quite new came into the world: the joy of life found expression. Perhaps it was born there, among the shepherds pasturing their flocks where the wild flowers made a glory on the hillside; among the sailors on a sapphire sea washing enchanted islands purple in a luminous air. — Edith Hamilton

Abject submission to the power on the throne which had been the rule of life in the ancient world since kings began, and was to be the rule of life in Asia for centuries to come, was cast off by the Greeks so easily, so lightly, hardly more than an echo of the contest has come down to us. In — Edith Hamilton

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

A tendency to exaggeration was a Roman trait. — Edith Hamilton

The author determines that the bitterest struggles are for one side of the truth to the suppression of the other side. — Edith Hamilton

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

When conditions are such that life offers no earthly hope, somewhere somehow, men must find refuge. Then they fly from the terror without to the citadel within, which famine and pestilence and fire and sword cannot shake. What Goethe calls the inner universe, can live by its own laws, create its own security, be sufficient unto itself, when once reality is denied to the turmoil of the world without. — Edith Hamilton

Euripides questioned everything. He was a misanthrope who preferred books to men. — Edith Hamilton

They yoked themselves to a car and drew her all the long way through dust and heat. Everyone admired their filial piety when they arrived and the proud and happy mother standing before the statue prayed that Hera would reward them by giving them the best gift in her power. As she finished her prayer the two lads sank to the ground. They were smiling and they looked as if they were peacefully asleep but they were dead. (Biton and Cleobis) — Edith Hamilton

The modern mind is never popular in its own day. People hate being made to think. — Edith Hamilton

The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat. — Edith Hamilton

In strange ways hard to know gods come to men.
Many a thing past hope they have fulfilled,
And what was asked for went another way.
A path we never thought to tread God found for us.
So this has come to pass. — Edith Hamilton

The ancient priests had said, "Thus far and no farther. We set the limits to thought." The Greeks said, "All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought." It is an extraordinary fact that by the time we have actual, documentary knowledge of the Greeks there is not a trace to be found of that domination over the mind by the priests which played such a decisive part in the ancient world. The priest plays no real part in either the history or the literature of Greece. — Edith Hamilton

Noble self-restraint must have something to restrain. — Edith Hamilton

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

The sense of the wonder of human life, its beauty and terror and pain, and the power in men to do and to hear, is in Aeschylus and in Shakespeare as in no other writer. Thy — Edith Hamilton

He drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek and make Hell grant what Love did seek. — Edith Hamilton

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

Reality has actually very little to do with truth; there is no necessary connection between the two. — Edith Hamilton

The wise are doubtful,' Socrates returned, 'and I should not be singular if I too doubted. — Edith Hamilton

Not because he had complete courage based on overwhelming strength, which is merely a matter of course, but because, by his sorrow for wrongdoing ad his willingness to do anything to expiate it, he showed greatness of soul. — Edith Hamilton

Convention (is) so often a mask for injustice. — Edith Hamilton

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

She looked at him; she did not speak. He was there beside her, yet she was far away from him, alone with her outraged love and her ruined life. His feelings had nothing in them to make him silent. — Edith Hamilton

Tragedy cannot take place around a type. Suffering is the most individualizing thing on earth. — Edith Hamilton

Tragedy belongs to the poets. Only they have "trod the sunlit heights and from life's dissonance struck one clear chord." None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry, and if poetry is true knowledge and the great poets guides safe to follow, this transmutation has arresting implications. Pain changed into, — Edith Hamilton

Kiss me yet once again, the last, long kiss, Until I draw your soul within my lips And drink down all your love. — Edith Hamilton

She would have given her soul to him if he had asked her. And now both were fixing their eyes on the ground, abashed, and again were throwing glances at each other, smiling with love's desire. — Edith Hamilton

Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom. — Edith Hamilton

There is no dignity like the dignity of a soul in agony. — Edith Hamilton

When the mind withdraws into itself and dispenses with facts it makes only chaos. — Edith Hamilton

Very few great artists feel the giant agony of the world. — Edith Hamilton

Moderately wise each one should be, Not overwise, for a wise man's heart Is seldom glad (Norse Wisdom) — Edith Hamilton

The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. — Edith Hamilton

So far, we do not seem appalled at the prospect of exactly the same kind of education being applied to all the school children from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but there is an uneasiness in the air, a realization that the individual is growing less easy to find; an idea, perhaps, of what standardization might become when the units are not machines, but human beings. — Edith Hamilton

It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies. — Edith Hamilton

What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world. And yet this full stature of greatness came to pass at a time when the mighty civilizations of the ancient world had perished and the shadow of "effortless barbarism" was dark upon the earth. In that black and fierce world a little centre of white-hot spiritual energy was at work. A new civilization had arisen in Athens, unlike all that had gone before. — Edith Hamilton

Through Plato, Aristotle came to believe in God; but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him; but Aristotle thought God through logically, and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover. — Edith Hamilton

The Greeks were the first intellectualists. In a world where the irrational had played the chief role, they came forward as the protagonists of the mind. — Edith Hamilton

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

The modern minds in each generation are the critics who preserve us from a petrifying world, who will not leave us to walk undisturbed in the ways of our fathers. — Edith Hamilton

One good thing, however, was there - Hope. It was the only good thing the casket had held among the many evils, and it remains to this day mankind's sole comfort in misfortune. — Edith Hamilton

To answer the question, what makes a tragedy, is to answer the question wherein lies the essential significance of life, what the dignity of humanity depends upon in the last analysis. Here the tragedians speak to us with no uncertain voice. The great tragedies themselves offer the solution to the problem they propound. It is by our power to suffer, above all, that we are of more value than the sparrows. Endow them with a greater or as great a potentiality of pain and our foremost place in the world would no longer be undisputed. Deep down, when we search out the reason for our conviction of the transcendent worth of each human being, we know that it is because of the possibility that each can suffer so terribly. What do outside trappings matter, Zenith or Elsinore? Tragedy's preoccupation is with suffering. But, — Edith Hamilton

The American classicist Edith Hamilton once described the great works of literature, the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages. — Edith Hamilton

A magical universe was so terrifying because it was so irrational. There was no cause and effect anywhere. — Edith Hamilton

I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today. — Edith Hamilton

Liberty depends on self-restraint. Freedom is freedom only when controlled and limited. — Edith Hamilton

[W]hat is ugly and evil is apt to change and grow milder with time. — Edith Hamilton

The easy way has never in the long run commanded the allegiance of mankind. — Edith Hamilton

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

Old ideas are continually being slain by new facts. There is nothing stable in the conclusions of the mind, and it is impossible that there ever should be unless we hold that the universe is made to the measure of the human mind, an assumption for which nothing in the past gives any warrant. — Edith Hamilton

None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry. — Edith Hamilton

Christ must be rediscovered perpetually. — Edith Hamilton

The sentences which Plato says were inscribed in the shrine at Delphi are singularly unlike those to be found in holy places outside of Greece. Know thyself was the first, and Nothing in excess the second, both marked by a total absence of the idiom of priestly formulas all the world over. Something new was moving in the world, the — Edith Hamilton

Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed. — Edith Hamilton