Ancient Greek Atheism Quotes

Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof? ~ Aristophanes

The games of the ancient Greeks were, in their original institutions, religious solemnities. ~ Dorothea Brande

Whenever I think about ancient cultures nostalgia seizes me. Perhaps this is nothing but envy of the sweet slowness of the history of that time. The era of ancient Egyptian culture lasted for several thousand years; the era of Greek antiquity for almost a thousand. In this respect, a single human life imitates the history of mankind; at first it is plunged into immobile slowness, and then only gradually does it accelerate more and more. ~ Milan Kundera

For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge. ~ Isaac Asimov

Zoe - " I said.

"Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."

A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."

"Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.

Thalia lowered her head. Annabeth gulped down a sob, and her father put his hands on her shoulders. I watched as Artemis cupped her hand above Zoe's mouth and spoke a few words in Ancient Greek. A silvery wisp of smoke exhaled from Zoe's lips and was caught in the hand of the goddess. Zoe's body shimmered and disappeared.

Artemis stood, said a kind of blessing, breathed into her cupped hand and released the silver dust to the sky. It flew up, sparkling, and vanished.

For a moment I didn't see anything different. Then Annabeth gasped. Looking up in the sky, I saw that the stars were brighter now. They made a pattern I had never noticed before - a gleaming constellation that looked a lot like a girl's figure - a girl with a bow, running across the sky.

"Let the world honor you, my Huntress," Artemis said. "Live forever in the stars. ~ Rick Riordan

We live in an era when established values are no longer valid, when prodigious discoveries are being made every year, when catastrophes of unbelievable proportions occur weekly. In ancient Greek the word "chaos" means "gaping void" or "yawning emptiness." The most effective response to the chaos in our lives is the creation of new forms of literature, music, poetry, art and cinema. ~ Werner Herzog

If in the library of your house you do not have the works of the ancient Greek writers, then you live in a house with no light. ~ George Bernard Shaw

When I became thoroughly acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors, I thought it incumbent upon me to do something towards the honor of the place of my nativity, and to vindicate the rhetoric of this ancient forum of our Metropolis from the aspersions of the illiterate by composing A Treatise of the Alercation of the Ancients; wherein I have demonstrated that the purity, sincerity, and simplicity of their diction is nowhere so well preserved as amongst my neighbourhood. ~ John Arbuthnot

Ancient Greek had no verb meaning "to read" as such: the verb they used, anagignsk, means "to know again," "to recollect." It refers to a memory procedure. Similarly, the Latin verb used for "to read" is lego, which means literally "to collect" or "to cull, pluck," referring also to a memory procedure (the re-collection or gathering up of material). ~ Mary Carruthers

The ancient Greeks, poets, authors and philosophers all puzzled over the question but nobody really knows what love is - including me. Longing for another person is an exciting mental experience. ~ Nicole Kidman

In all of Western civilization, there have been societies that celebrating the homosexuality, the ancient Greeks. But they, in fact, protected the institution of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. They got the joke. And the American people get the joke. ~ Ken Blackwell

You can learn technological things, you can learn about specific things, but the real problems that people deal with in any subject, existential subjects or romantic subjects, you never learn anything. So you make a fool of yourself when you're 20, you make a fool of yourself at 40, at 60 at 80. The ancient Greeks were dealing with these problems. They screwed up all the time. People do now. ~ Woody Allen

One of its (civilisations) most powerful weapons has always been 'barbarity': 'we' know that 'we' are civilised by contrasting ourselves with those we deem to be uncivilised, with those who do not -or cannot be trusted to - share our values. Civilisation is a process of exclusion as well as inclusion. The boundary between 'us' and 'them' may be an internal one (for much of world history the idea of a 'civilised woman' has been a contradiction in terms), or an external one, as the word 'barbarian' suggests; it was originally a derogatory and ethnocentric ancient Greek term for foreigners you could not understand, because they spoke in an incomprehensible babble: 'bar-bar-bar ...' The inconvenient truth, of course, is that so-called 'barbarians' may be no more than those with a different view from ourselves of what it is to be civilised, and of what matters in human culture. In the end, one person's barbarity is another person's civilisation. ~ Mary Beard

At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings.
Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of the intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun
as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun."
-from "The Life of a Stupid Man ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa

I gave them hope, and so turned away their eyes from death ~ Aeschylus

That which is used - develops. That which is not used wastes away. ~ Hippocrates

What the Latins have done in this text (1 John v, 7) the Greeks have done to Paul (1 Tim. iii, 16). They now read, "Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh"; whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome as well as the rest, read, "Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh." Our English version makes it yet a little stronger. It reads, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." ~ Isaac Newton

All ancient philosophers, poets, and moralists agree that love is a striving, an aspiration of the "lower" toward the "higher," the "unformed" toward the "formed," ... "appearance" towards "essence," "ignorance" towards "knowledge," a "mean between fullness and privation," as Plato says in the Symposium. ... The universe is a great chain of dynamic spiritual entities, of forms of being ranging from the "prima materia" up to man - a chain in which the lower always strives for and is attracted by the higher, which never turns back but aspires upward in its turn. This process continues up to the deity, which itself does not love, but represents the eternally unmoving and unifying goal of all these aspirations of love. Too little attention has been given to the peculiar relation between this idea of love and the principle of the "agon," the ambitious contest for the goal, which dominated Greek life in all its aspects - from the Gymnasium and the games to dialectics and the political life of the Greek city states. Even the objects try to surpass each other in a race for victory, in a cosmic "agon" for the deity. Here the prize that will crown the victor is extreme: it is a participation in the essence, knowledge, and abundance of "being." Love is only the dynamic principle, immanent in the universe, which sets in motion this great "agon" of all things for the deity.
Let us compare this with the Christian conception. In that conception there takes place what might be called a ~ Max Scheler

This Proto-Indo-European term ghosti (from which we get the words guest, host and ghost) referred to a kind of unspoken etiquette, a notion that on seeing strangers on the horizon, rather than choose to fell them with spears or sling-shots, instead we should take the risk of welcoming them across our threshold – on the chance that they might bring new notions, new goods, fresh blood with them.

Over time this word-idea evolved into the Greek xenia – ritualised guest–host friendship, an understanding that stitched together the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. ~ Bettany Hughes

Pacifists are reluctant to remember this, but early on the ancient Greeks invented democracy as a continuation of war by other means. The assembly practice on the scale of the citystate came directly from the assembly of warriors. Equality of speech stemmed from equality in the face of death. Athenian democracy was a hoplitic democracy. One was a citizen because one was a soldier - hence the exclusion of women and slaves. In a culture as violently agonistic as classical Greek culture, debate itself was understood as a moment of warlike confrontation, between citizens this time, in the sphere of speech, with the arms of persuasion.Moreover, "agon" signifies "assembly" as much as "competition. " The complete Greek citizen was one who was victorious both with arms and with discourse. ~ Anonymous

The ancient Greeks kept women athletes out of their games. They wouldn't even let them on the sidelines. I'm not sure but that they were right. ~ Avery Brundage

All men make mistakes,' said the ancient Greek Sophocles. 'But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride. ~ Ken Follett

In other words if a man is armed, then one pretty much has to take his opinions into account. One can see how this worked at its starkest in Xenophon's Anabasis, which tells the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who suddenly find themselves leaderless and lost in the middle of Persia. They elect new officers, and then hold a collective vote to decide what to do next. In a case like this, even if the vote was 60/40, everyone could see the balance of forces and what would happen if things actually came to blows. Every vote was, in a real sense, a conquest. ~ David Graeber

Chen pointed to the cub. "There's your brute." Then he pointed to the pups. "And there's your domestication. For the most part, Westerners are descendants of barbarian, nomadic tribes such as the Teutons and the Anglo-Saxons. They burst out of the primeval forest like wild animals after a couple of thousand years of Greek and Roman civilization, and sacked ancient Rome. They eat steak, cheese, and butter with knives and forks, which is how they've retained more primitive wildness than the traditional farming races. Over the past hundred years, domesticated China has been bullied by the brutish West. It's not surprising that for thousands of years the Chinese colossus has been spectacularly pummeled by tiny nomadic peoples. ~ Jiang Rong

The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus taught his students that what happens to them is not as important as what they believe happens to them. In this engaging and provocative book, Eldon Taylor provides his readers with specific ways in which their beliefs can lead to success or failure in their life undertakings. Each chapter provides nuggets of wisdom as well as road maps for guiding them toward greater self-understanding, balance, responsibility, and compassion. ~ Stanley Krippner

In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required. ~ W. H. Auden

The fundamental facts about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priest had said, "Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought." The Greeks said, All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought. ~ Edith Hamilton

I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whore-mongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not far off the mark. ~ George MacDonald Fraser

We now have a theory of effective collective action with decentralized authority. The theory is based on a conception of human nature as at once social, interdependent, justice-seeking, self-interested, and strategic. That conception is consistent with contemporary social science and with ancient Greek thought. The theory explains (through a mix of ideology, federalism, "altruistic" punishment, and existential threats) individual motivation to cooperate in the absence of a unitary sovereign as third-party enforcer. It provides (through information exchange) a mechanism that enables many individuals to accomplish common goals and to produce public goods without requiring orders from a master. ~ Josiah Ober

The sacrificial part of the Greek religion had to do with submitting to the wild chaotic world beyond one's own will; getting used to the idea that your rational plans will be knocked around by larger forces. The ecstatic-ritual part of ancient Greek religion was a kind of throwing oneself into the chaos, not pitting your rationality against the tempestuous world, but rather leaving your rationality on the shore, letting the waves toss you about, and coming to identify with the waves, with the storm, with the weather. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

If Morris and his contemporaries were possessed by the medieval Christian imagination and the ancient sagas, the moderns looked further back to the ancient world, and rewrote the Greek myths and legends to suit their own ideas about society and history. ~ A.S. Byatt

In fact the "mask" theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in "The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism", and Robert Jackall, in "Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers", refer repeatedly to the "masks" that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces.
Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to "get in the face" of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

It is certain that the labors of these early workers in the field of natural knowledge were brought to a standstill by the decay and disruption of the Roman Empire, the consequent disorganisation of society, and the diversion of men's thoughts from sublunary matters to the problems of the supernatural world suggested by Christian dogma in the Middle Ages. And, notwithstanding sporadic attempts to recall men to the investigation of nature, here and there, it was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that physical science made a new start, founding itself, at first, altogether upon that which had been done by the Greeks. Indeed, it must be admitted that the men of the Renaissance, though standing on the shoulders of the old philosophers, were a long time before they saw as much as their forerunners had done. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

It's no secret that I've always had an interest in mythology. Whether it's Arthurian or ancient Greek or even Marvel universe. I've always connected with it on some level. ~ Nicolas Cage

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. ~ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence. ~ Richard Russo

In summary, the typical educated Roman of this age was orderly, conservative, loyal, sober, reverent, tenacious, severe, practical. He enjoyed discipline, and would have no nonsense about liberty. He obeyed as a training for command. He took it for granted that the government had a right to inquire into his morals as well as his income, and to value him purely according to his services to the state. He distrusted individuality and genius. He had none of the charm, vivacity, and unstable fluency of the Attic Greek. He admired character and will as the Greek admired freedom and intellect; and organization was his forte. He lacked imagination, even to make a mythology of his own. He could with some effort love beauty, but he could seldom create it. He had no use for pure science, and was suspicious of philosophy as a devilish dissolvent of ancient beliefs and ways. He could not, for the life of him, understand Plato, or Archimedes, or Christ. He could only rule the world. ~ Will Durant

Before we criticize Gerbert and his compatriots for their foolish adherence to ancient Greek and Hebrew authority, consider this: if someone asked you today to demonstrate that the earth orbits the sun, you almost certainly could not do it. You could show them every book and ask every expert, but you could not provide them with direct evidence without a telescope, a lot of time, and a lot of mathematics. Gerbert lacked the telescope and the math, so we cannot blame him for believing his books when they so clearly echoed common sense. The idea that the earth moves was absurd, and it would take a great deal of careful thought before people realized that it was even possible. ~ James Hannam

I dislike the word mythology because of its secondary definition meaning "something untrue." Myth is a Greek word that simply means "story," and mythologies are collections of ancient stories explaining the order of the universe or a society's ideals and customs. ~ Alaric Albertsson

In Montaigne's redrawn portrait of the adequate, semi-rational human being, it is possible to speak no Greek, fart, change one's mind after a meal, get bored with books, know none of the ancient philosophers and mistake Scipios. A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough. ~ Alain De Botton

In Ancient Greek literature male poets tend not simply to portray women as lecherous but to attribute to them a species of lust different from that of males: a subhuman and automatic reflex, an animalistic urge. Sappho is important because she gives a fulle human voice to female desire for the first time in Western history. Since she defiantly chooses the quintessential love-object Helen of Troy as her freethinking agent, she seems fully conscious of the revolutionary claim she is making. ~ Sappho

Socrates is a shining example of a man who bravely lived up to his ideals, and, in the end, bravely died for them. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in the mind's ability to discern and decide, and so to apprehend and master reality. Nor did he ever betray truth and integrity for a pitiable life of self-deception and semi-consciousness. In seeking relentlessly to align mind with matter and thought with fact, he remained faithful both to himself and to the world, with the result that he is still alive in this sentence and millions of others that have been written about him. More than a great philosopher, Socrates was the living embodiment of the dream that philosophy might one day set us free. ~ Neel Burton