Greek Culture Quotes

I had the good luck a few years ago to visit the archeological site of Zippori in Israel ... I could see here displayed the Greek culture that Jesus decisively rejected, the same Greek culture that infiltrated the Christian religion soon after his death and has dominated Christianity ever since.

The Jews had a love-hate relationship with the Greek culture. They craved its civilization but resented its dominance. Josephus says they regarded Greeks as feckless, promiscuous, modernizing lightweights, yet many Jerusalemites were already living the fashionable lifestyle using Greek and Jewish names to show they could be both. Jewish conservatives disagreed; for them, the Greeks were simply idolaters.

Just as the ideal of classic Greek culture was the most perfect harmony of mind and body, so a human and a bicycle are the perfect synthesis of body and machine.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

Greek culture is pleasant to contemplate because of its great simplicity and naturalness, and because of the absence of gadgets, each of which is sooner or later a cause of servitude.