Classics Quotes

“Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“And his good wife will tear her cheeks in grief, his sons are orphans and he, soaking the soil red with his own blood, he rots away himself—more birds than women flocking round his body!”
― Homer, The Iliad

“…and they limp and halt, they’re all wrinkled, drawn, they squint to the side, can’t look you in the eyes, and always bent on duty, trudging after Ruin, maddening, blinding Ruin. But Ruin is strong and swift—She outstrips them all by far, stealing a march, leaping over the whole wide earth to bring mankind to grief.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“It is untrue that fiction is nonutilitarian. The uses of fiction are synonymous with the uses of literature. They include refreshment, clarification of life, self-awareness, expansion of our range of experiences, and enlargement of our sense of understanding and discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty , and understanding. Like literature generally, fiction is a form of discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty, and understanding. If it is all these things, the question of whether it is a legitimate use of time should not even arise.”
― Leland Ryken, Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective

“The commercial work of today is the classics of tomorrow.”
― Orson Scott Card

“Got on! Got on! It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success.”
― Agatha Christie, The Labours of Hercules

“And I realise now, more than ever, that I have lost all my best years!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Do you know that, maybe, I shall leave off
grieving over the crime and sin of my life? for such a life is a crime and a sin. And do not imagine that I have
been exaggerating anything—for goodness’ sake don't
think that, Nastenka: for at times such misery comes
over me, such misery.... Because it begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Do you know that, maybe, I shall leave off
grieving over the crime and sin of my life? for such a life
is a crime and a sin. And do not imagine that I have
been exaggerating anything—for goodness’ sake don't
think that, Nastenka: for at times such misery comes
over me, such misery.... Because it begins to seem to me
at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in
real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all
touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last
I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I
have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful!
Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in
the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men
living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbid-
den, that their life does not float away like a dream, like
a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eter-
nally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as
another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to
vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the
idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun,
and overcasts with depression the true Petersburg heart
so devoted to the sun—and what is fancy in depression!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“You know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing... for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple, nullity, there has been nothing but dreams.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“You know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing... for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky - White Nights and Other Stories: “The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness”

“Coro:
Tenta moderar-te!
Não vês que teus ressentimentos
já te causam grandes mágoas?
Alimentando ódios
agravas o teu sofrimento com rancor demais;
é vão esforço resistir aos poderosos.

Electra:
Fatos terríveis me constrangem, terríveis!
Minha ira não se dissimula;
não poderei jamais calar diante de tal desventura!
Quem, generosas companheiras, quem de bom senso
exigirá de mim que dê ouvidos
a qualquer palavra de consolo?
Deixai-me!
Deixai-me, companheiras prestimosas!
Males iguais aos meus jamais terão remédio!
Jamais me livrarei de minhas mágoas,
de meus soluços incessantes!

Coro:
Mas é por bem-querer que te aconselho,
qual devotada mãe,
a não acrescentar desgraças a desgraça.

Electra:
Pode haver ponderação no desespero?”
― Sófocles, Electra

“Les choses non dites pourrissent à l'intérieur de nous.”
― Goliarda Sapienza, L'arte della gioia

“Annemle babam belki de bu ölülerin arasında, dedi koyu renk gözlüklü genç kız ve ben onları göremeden yanlarından geçip gidiyorum, Ölülerin yanından onları görmeden geçip gitmek insanlığın çok eski bir alışkanlı- ğıdır, dedi doktorun karısı.”
― José Saramago, Ensayo Sobre La Ceguera

“Annemle babam belki de bu ölülerin arasında, dedi koyu renk gözlüklü genç kız ve ben onları göremeden yanlarından geçip gidiyorum, Ölülerin yanından onları görmeden geçip gitmek insanlığın çok eski bir alışkanlığıdır, dedi doktorun karısı.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“İnsanlar arasındaki kavga öyle ya da böyle bir tür körlüktür”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Ölülerin ölmesinin sonu gelmiyordu, çünkü birileri gelip onları yeniden yaşama döndürüyordu.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Meu io io, sei que amanhã faz anos, mando-te esta lembrança. Tua ia ia”
― Machado de Assis

“Varoluşçuluk, Tanrının yokluğunu ispata uğraşmaz. Böylesi bir çabayla kendini yormaz. O şuna bakar: Tanrı var olsaydı, yine de bir şey değişmeyecekti.”
― Jean Paul Sartre

“Gerçek varoluşçuluk umudun ancak eylemde bulunduğunu, kişiyi yaşatacak tek şeyin edimleri olduğunu öne sürer.”
― Jean Paul Sartre, LITERATURE & EXISTENTIALISM

“A part of the answer to these questions is that Christians have no more moral duty to read and study Greek and Roman literature than ancient Israelites had a duty to study the myths of Baal and Asteroth. Nor should Christian homeschoolers think that they can have a good Christian education only if the "classics" are prominent in the curriculum. The goal of Christian education is to train a child to be faithful in serving God and His kingdom in a calling, and certainly this goal can be achieved by a student who never cracks the cover of a Homeric epic. page 18”
― Peter J. Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man

“Dünyaya gözümüzü açıyoruz ve o anda, tüm yaşamımızı bağlayacak bir sözleşme imzalamış gibi oluyoruz, ne var ki günün birinde bir an gelir "bu imzayı benim yerime kim attı." diye sorabiliriz.”
― José Saramago, Seeing

“I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long. Abandoning a lifelong belief that to name happiness is to dissipate it, she smiled at herself in the mirror and told herself silently, You are happy, Eleanor, you have finally been given a part of your measure of happiness.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“İnsan zekasının içine gizlenmiş bazı gizemli hazineleri açığa çıkarmak için mutsuzluk gerek.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Mont Cristo

“My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue-spruce needles scattered in the pages. They smell of Christmas still.”
― Charlton Heston

“My friend Patroclus, whom I loved, is dead.
I loved him more than any other comrade.
I loved him like my head, my life, myself.
I lost him, killed him.
[. . .]
. . .my Patroclus, son of Menoetius.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Zayıf insanlar kaldırdığı ağırlıktan söz eder, utangaç, kafa tuttuğu devlerden, fakir, kullandığı hazinelerden, en basit köylü, gurur konusunda kendini Jupiter sanır.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Benim yüreğim başkalarından daha zayıftı belki, ben onların çekebileceğindan daha fazla çektim, hepsi bu.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count Of Monte Cristo

“Yaşamanın ne kadar güzel olduğunu öğrenebilmek için ölmeyi istemiş olmak gerekir.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count Of Monte Cristo

“Ölüm nedir? Dinginliğin bir derece fazlası, sessizliğin belki de iki derece ötesi.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count Of Monte Cristo