When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
Edith HamiltonRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature reflects the true character and knowledge of a society.
Edith Hamilton emphasizes that literature serves as a profound medium through which we can understand a culture and its people. Unlike historical accounts, contemporary writings capture the essence, values, and quality of a societyβs character, offering insights into their beliefs, struggles, and aspirations.
Themes
LiteratureKnowledgeCultureSocietyCharacter
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about how literature can reflect societal values, this quote could serve as a strong point.
More from Edith Hamilton
All quotes βThe power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat.
Edith HamiltonRead
Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.
Edith HamiltonRead
To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful ... was a mark of the Greek spirit.
Edith HamiltonRead
Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.
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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 HamiltonRead
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America is a nation of liars, and for that reason science fiction has a special claim to be our national literature, as the art form best adapted to telling the lies we like to hear and to pretend we believe.
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The one thing about being a dude and writing from a female perspective is that the baseline is, you suck. The baseline is it takes so long for you to work those atrophied muscles - for you to get on parity with what women's representations of men are.
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We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
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Literary men are . . . a perpetual priesthood.
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That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?
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Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Samuel JohnsonRead