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A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people, as no historical reconstruction can.

— Edith Hamilton The Roman Way (1932)

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More quotes by Edith Hamilton

All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought.

The Greek Way (1930)

None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry.

The Greek Way (1930)

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth, and that which enables him to die for the truth.

The Greek Way (1930)

Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.

The Roman Way (1932)

All things are at odds when God lets a thinker loose on this planet.

The Greek Way (1930)

All Edith Hamilton quotes →

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edith Hamilton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.