Nefertiti is lovely, but we should use our wit and will to look beyond that beautiful face to discover and to enjoy a more satisfying narrative - the story of mankind, not just of man.
Bettany HughesRead
We think the way we do partly because Socrates thought the way he did. His basic idea - that the unexamined life is not worth living - is what it means to live in the modern world, to develop ideas and ask questions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and inquiry in life.
Bettany Hughes highlights that our current way of thinking is significantly influenced by the philosophical ideas of Socrates, particularly his belief that a life without self-examination lacks value. The quote underscores the relevance of critical thinking and questioning in understanding our existence and developing our ideas in the modern world.
Themes
SocratesSelf-ExaminationPhilosophyCritical ThinkingModern Life
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used to inspire a group discussion on the value of self-reflection in a personal development workshop.
More from Bettany Hughes
All quotes βI cannot write about the past unless I go where history happened. Some make very good armchair historians, I'm not one of them. If you're going to inhabit someone else's world, the very least you can do is to spend a little time in it.
Bettany HughesRead
Of all the human figurines discovered so far from 30,000-3,000BC, 92% are of the female form. This is not to say there was any kind of matriarchy or worship of a mother goddess - far from it - but women are conspicuous by their presence.
Bettany HughesRead
When she stepped out of that spumy sea Aphrodite was said to have brought fertility, flowers, life, light to a barren world. For centuries women and men went to her sanctuaries to seek her pity and protection. Her domain was originally not just lust, but lust for life.
Bettany HughesRead
Venus, ancient goddess of love and beauty, is an apparently irrelevant, invented deity of the long dead. But Venus merits scrutiny. Chart her life story across 5,000 years and you chart the evolution of our conflicted relationship with sex and with the female body.
Bettany HughesRead
Aphrodite-Venus had become not a subject of adoration, but an agent of exploitation. From the moment Christian society perceived sex not as a gift of the goddess but a crime against God himself, women were believed to be the vessels of love's malign power.
Bettany HughesRead
Similar quotes
You belong neither to God nor the state nor me. You belong to yourself and no one else.
Oriana FallaciRead
Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
Natasha TretheweyRead
You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.
Philip RothRead
Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.
Saul AlinskyRead
I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
C. S. LewisRead
The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.
John Shelby SpongRead