Best Greek Quotes

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

There is nothing permanent except change.

One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles, and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced; for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown.

She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Greek is the embodiment of the fluent speech that runs or soars, the speech of a people which could not help giving winged feet toits god of art. Latin is the embodiment of the weighty and concentrated speech which is hammered and pressed and polished into the shape of its perfection, as the ethically minded Romans believed that the soul also should be wrought.

To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.

I didn’t have a big fat Greek wedding, but I have a lot of fat Greek friends.

The sacred writings excepted, no Greek has been so much read and so variously translated as Euclid.

To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals.

The ancient Greeks kept women athletes out of their games. They wouldn’t even let them on the sidelines. I’m not sure but that they were right.

The universal basis for the categorisation ‘woman’ will, no doubt, be constantly shifting but it is important not to deny it’s existence altogether. There is a partly biological basis for this identification. The ‘nature’ of woman may be conceptualised in the early Greek sense of a force or a power, in its turn shaped by forces outside it, rather than in terms of some set of properties.

Characters work really well when they’re reflective of the times that they’re operating in. To keep these characters static – like Superman was invented in the ’30s, Wonder Woman in the ’40s – if they were still operating under those kinds of constraints, they’d die. These pop cultures, just like Greek myths, they have to reflect the time their stories are being told. That’s what makes them relevant.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

I think we all know that world owes an enormous debt to Greece and the Greek people.

Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will’s impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.

If we want happiness, I think we should follow classic Greek wisdom and live with areté. The word directly translates as ‘excellence’ or ‘virtue,’ but has a deeper meaning — something closer to ‘expressing the highest version of ourselves.’ When we’re showing up fully moment to moment, there’s no room for regret/anxiety/disillusionment, just a whole lot of happiness. Here’s to getting our areté on!

Greece and the Greek people have recently had to deal with the harshest consequences of the global and European economic crisis. As an economy and as a society, we have had to experience a program of disastrous austerity which made the problems more acute instead of resolving them.

In order to make reforms sustainable, the Greek economy needs the space to return to growth and start creating jobs again.

I want my house open to sun and wind and the voice of the sea, like a Greek temple, and light, light, light everywhere!

In some ways, Lotus Eaters is a journey disguised as a party film; there’s a circus in the movie, and there are parties, but the real story is of an internal journey. There’s themes of emptiness and excess and beauty and grief around it, but it’s always surrounded by these glamorous events, and those are ways of waylaying her on her journey in the same way that it is in the ancient Greek story.

Everybody can’t be like Redford and pop out there and make big bucks right away because you look like a Greek god… The guy’s a friend of mine and he has absolutely no privacy in his life.

You shouldn’t be a big shot about your fate. I’m an enemy of Destiny, I’m not a Greek, I’m a Berliner.

Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? … Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

Shipping magnate of the 20th century If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.

I’m personally very grateful to my many friends in the Greek-American community, sons and daughters of Greece who have found success in every walk of American life.

The puzzle and conundrums of Emily Dickinson’s poetry or The Cantos, by Ezra Pound, is infinitely pleasurable. Or Ronald Johnson’s Ark. And the experience extends a whole lifetime. But the intensity of certain vocalized language affects our bodies in a particular way, and that further actualization propels me. The Greeks explored this; there were very particular meters used in making war, different ones for a love chant.

The Greek people not only relate to the ancient traditions, they have fought, they have shed blood, until recently, to defend the values of democracy and freedom.

There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don’t think I can imitate it, but there’s a density to it that I think I’m always trying to push towards in English.

Slowly but surely, we are decreasing unemployment and we are restoring confidence to the future of the Greek economy.

The Greeks were smarter than us, and they had different words for different kinds of love. There’s storge, which is family love. That’s not us. There’s eros, which is sexual love. There’s philia, which is brotherly love. And then there’s the highest form. Agape. He pronounced it aga-pay. That’s transcendental love, like when you place the other person above yourself.