The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (9)

Time, Inc. 1930 (9).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

One thing you will recognize: There’s a significant difference between the Athenian democracy and the U.S. democracy: citizen responsibility.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

The purpose of this blog? To find interesting ideas in books.

Ideas:

Xenophon: “The leader must himself believe that willing obedience always beats forced obedience, and that he can get this only by really knowing what should be done.” P. 200. ………. “No one, Cyrus always said, can be a good officer who does not undergo more than those he commands.” P. 200. ………. “Our word ‘idiot’ comes from the Greek name for the man who took no share in public matters.” P. 202. ………. “…the ideal of free individuals unified by a spontaneous service to the common life was left as a possession to the world, never to be forgotten.” P. 203. ………. The Idea of Tragedy. ………. “The special characteristic of the Greeks was their power to see the world clearly and at the same time as beautiful.” P. 206. ………. “Tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation.” P. 208. ………. “A tragedy shows us pain and gives us pleasure thereby.” P. 207. ………. “…strange contradiction of pleasure through pain….” P. 208. ………. Nietzsche: “…the reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death….” ………. Hegel: “…the only tragic subject is a spiritual struggle in which each side has a claim upon our sympathy.” P. 209. ………. “When humanity is seen as devoid of dignity and significance, trivial, mean, and sunk in dreary hopelessness, then the spirit of tragedy departs.” P. 210.

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (8).

Time, Inc. 1930 (8).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

One thing you will recognize: There’s a significant difference between the Athenian democracy and the U.S. democracy: citizen responsibility.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

The purpose of this blog? To find interesting ideas in books.

Ideas:

“The arrogance that springs from a consciousness of power was the sin Greeks had always hated most.” P. 172. ………. Sparta: “War was by no means a necessary evil; it was the noblest form of human activity.” P. 175. ………. “A Spartan was not an individual but a part of a well-functioning machine which assumed all responsibility for him, exacted absolute submission from him, molded his character and mind, and imbued him with the deep conviction that the chief end of man was to kill and be killed.” P. 176. ………. “The idea of the Athenian state was a union of individuals free to develop their own powers and live in their own way, obedient only to the laws they passed themselves and could criticize and change at will.” P. 177. ………. “Freedom strictly limited by self-control—that was the idea of Athens at her greatest.” P. 177. ………. “Xenophon was truly a man of his times, when poets and dramatists and historians were soldiers and generals and explorers.” P. 191. ………. “The basis of the Athenian democracy was the conviction of all democracies—that the average man can be depended upon to do his duty and to use good sense in doing it.” P. 193.

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (7).

Time, Inc. 1930 (7).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

One thing you will recognize: There’s a significant difference between the Athenian democracy and the U.S. democracy: citizen responsibility.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

The purpose of this blog? To find interesting ideas in books.

Ideas:

“Aristotle, with no expressed or implied disapproval defines a slave as ‘a machine which breathes, a piece of animated property.’ ” P 144. ……….. Socrates: “For wisdom begins in wonder.” P. 145. ………. “Leisure meant activity in those days.” P. 145. ………. “Herodotus never judged or condemned.” P. 149. ………. “The gods…hated beyond all else the arrogance of power….” P. 158. ………. Aeschylus: “All arrogance will reap a harvest rich in tears/ God calls men to a heavy reckoning/ For overweening pride.” P. 158. ………. “Thucydides wrote his book because he believed that men would  profit from a knowledge of what brought about the ruinous struggle precisely as they profit from a statement of what causes deadly disease.” P. 165. ……… “…circumstances swayed by human nature are bound to repeat themselves and in the same situation men are bound to act in the same way unless it is shown to them that such a course in other days ended disastrously.” P. 165. ………. “Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is really a treatise on war, its causes and its effects.” P. 166. ………. “The motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession which no power and no possession satisfy” .P. 167. ………. “Power, whoever wields it, was evil, the corrupter of men.” P. 167. ……….. “…great power brought about its own destruction.”

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (6).

Time, Inc. 1930 (6).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

The purpose of this blog? To find interesting ideas in books.

Ideas:

“The society he [Plato] introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance, keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject.” P. 95. ………. Socrates: “I am a lover of knowledge…and men are my teachers.” P. 100. ………. “If the Platonic Dialogues point to any one conclusion…it is that the Athenian did not want someone else to do his thinking for him.” P. 106. ………. Voltaire: “True comedy is the speaking picture of the follies and foibles of a nation.” P. 108. ………. “…Aristophanes is capable of more kinds of vulgarity and indecency than Shakespeare ever dreamed of.” P. 108. ………. “There is a connection between the sublime and the ridiculous.” P. 109. ………. “The freedom of speech in Athens is [by comparison] staggering to our own ideas.” P. 110. ………. “Aristophanes was amused by grand talk that covered empty content.” P. 125. ………. “Some things, however, were seen by the Athenian Aristophanes which the Englishman W.S. Gilbert was constrained not to see and this fact constitutes the chief point of difference between them.” P. 137. ………. “…Aristophanes’ audience set no limits at all.” P. 138. ………. “Aristophanes is so frank, so fearless, so completely without shame, one ends by feeling that indecency is just a part of life and a part with specially humorous possibilities.” P. 139.

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (5).

The purpose of this blog? To find interesting ideas in books.

Time, Inc. 1930 (5).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

Ideas:

“Aristocracy: authority in the hands of the disciplined best.” P. 76. ………. “…nobility of birth has no connection with spiritual nobility.” P. 77. ………. “It has often been pointed out that the perfect expression of anything means that that thing has reached its culmination and is on the point of declining.” P. 77. ………. “Can excellence be learned?” p. 81. ………. “Power, of poetry or anything else, comes to a man be birth; it cannot be taught in the public schools.” P. 81. ………. “A gentleman will not join the staring crowd.” P. 83. ………. Pindar prays: “May God give me to aim at that which is within my power.” ………. 85. ………. “Civilization…is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the things of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling.” P. 89. ………. “…the height of civilization attained with undiminished power to act.” P. 89. ………. “We, to whom poetry, all art, is only a superficial decoration of life….”p. 91. ………. “The Greeks were preeminently realists.” P. 91. ………. “The Greeks were not tempted to evade facts.” P. 91. ………. “…it is always to be borne in mind that the Greeks did not only face facts, they had not even a desire to escape from them.” P. 93.

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (4).

Time, Inc. 1930 (4).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

Ideas:

“The Greeks were realists, but not as we use the word: they saw the beauty of common things and were content with it.” P. 58. ………. “Hebrew poetry is directed to the emotions; it is designed to make the hearers feel, not think. Therefore, it is a poetry based on reiteration.” P. 62. “The Greek poet is concerned to get his idea across, not to emotionalize it.” P. 65. “The English method is to fill the mind with beauty; the Greek method was to set the mind to work” p. 67. ………. “Pindar’s poetry is of all poetry the most like music, not the music that wells up from the bird’s throat, but the music that is based on structure, on fundamental laws of balance and symmetry, on carefully calculated effects, a Bach fugue, a Beethoven sonata or symphony.” P. 71. ……… “Shakespeare and Milton are painters with words more than they are master craftsmen in metrical effects.” P. 72. ………. “Pindar is the last spokesman for the Greek aristocracy.” P. 74. ………. “To the fathers of the Church as to Plato, no one who desired power was fit to wield it.” P. 75.

To be continued.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton (3).

Time, Inc. 1930 (3).

Why read It? The Athenians were a people who lived their view of truth which was many-sided and often contradictory. They accepted and lived the contradictions. They were individuals who also participated in the community. They were poets who were also soldiers. They needed to suffer in order to achieve exhilaration. The ancient Greeks’ view of life is summed up in this quotation from Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way: “The Roman games played an important part in the life of the Romans, but, as has often been remarked, the Greeks played; the Romans watched others play.” P. 320.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was completely distraught. His sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way. That book enabled Robert to survive the tragedy in his life. The Greek Way provided a model for how to deal with tragedy.

Ideas:

Anaxagoras: “All things were in chaos when mind arose and made order.” P. 21. ………. “The Greeks said, ‘All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought.’ ” P. 21. ………. “The Greeks meant by philosophy the endeavor to understand everything there is, and they called it what they felt it to be, the love of knowledge.” P. 25. ………. “Socrates was the only man in Athens who suffered death for his opinions.” P. 27. ……….. Aristotle: “Such to man is the life according to  reason, since it is this that makes him man.” P. 30. ………. “The truth of poetry and the truth of science were both true.” P. 31. ………. Socrates: “Think this certain, that to a good man no evil can happen, either in life or in death.” P. 34. ……….. Socrates: “For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers.” P. 34. ……….. “Art is to us of the West the unifier of what is without and what is within.” P. 42. ……….. “…brush aside all obscuring, entangling superfluity, and see clearly, plainly, unadorned, what they wished to express.” P. 49. ………. “…mind and spirit in equilibrium.” P. 49. ………. “The Gothic cathedral was raised in awe and reverence to Almighty God, the expression of the aspirations of the lowly…. The Parthenon was raised in triumph to express the beauty and the power and the splendor of man….” P. 51.

To be continued.