Edith Hamilton
Edith Hamilton
Edith Hamiltonwas an American educator and author who was "recognized as the greatest woman Classicist." She was 62 years old when The Greek Way, her first book, was published in 1930. It was instantly successful, and is the earliest expression of her belief in "the calm lucidity of the Greek mind" and "that the great thinkers of Athens were unsurpassed in their mastery of truth and enlightenment."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth12 August 1867
CountryUnited States of America
When the world is storm-driven and bad things happen, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.
The Greek temple is the creation, par excellence, of mind and spirit in equilibrium.
The Old Testament is the record of men's conviction that God speaks directly to men.
The comedy of each age holds up a mirror to the people of that age, a mirror that is unique.
Myths are early science, the result of men's first trying to explain what they saw around them.
There is no dignity like the dignity of a soul in agony.
The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next.
A people's literature is the great text-book for real knowledge of them.
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.
Poetry and preaching do not go well together; when the preacher mounts the pulpit the poet usually goes away.
There is no better indication of what the people of any period are like than the plays they go to see.
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.
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.
The suffering of a soul that can suffer greatly -- that and only that, is tragedy.