Edith Hamilton Quotes

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.

A people's literature is the great text-book for real knowledge of them.

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

The fullness of life is in the hazards of life.

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

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

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.

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

The suffering of a soul that can suffer greatly -- that and only that, is tragedy.

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)

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

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.

A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

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

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

Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.

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

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

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.

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.