Ancient Greeks

Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or greeks:

    In ancient times—’twas no great loss—
    They hung the thief upon the cross:
    But now, alas!—I say’t with grief—
    They hang the cross upon the thief.
    —Anonymous. “On a Nomination to the Legion of Honour,” from Aubrey Stewart’s English Epigrams and Epitaphs (1897)

    In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)