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It must be supposed, not that the god specially wished this problem solved, but that he would have the Greeks desist from war and wickedness and cultivate the Muses, so that, their passions being assuaged by philosophy and mathematics, they might live in innocent and mutually helpful intercourse with one another.

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(c. 380 BC) response when the Delians consulted him on the problem, set them by the Oracle, of duplicating the cube, as quoted by Sir Thomas Little Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1, From Thales to Euclid, Preface, p. ix.

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Mathematics

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Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.

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Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind.

Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, lovers of gain?

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