Artifice Quote by William Blake

“If you will bear in mind that Socrates, the best of the pagans, knew of no higher criterion for men, of no better guide…

— Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

“Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge…

— Henry David Thoreau

Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all things which are disreputable and worthy of blame when done by men; and they told of…

— Xenophanes

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not…

— Jonathan Swift

Did the gods once mingle with humankind, or is Homer a visionary madman, or, what is worse, a mere poet, a maker-up of beautiful…

— Eva Brann

And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they…

— Plato

“No one ever gave his life to translate and preserve the writings of Virgil or Homer. But many have dedicated their lives to the…

— Larry Stone

“I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find…

— Marilynne Robinson

How is the soul profited by the strife of Hector, the arguments of Plato, the poems of Virgil, or the elegies of Ovid, who,…

— Honorius Augustodunensis

“The 21st century has certainly seen the rape of women in wartime, but it has long been treated as an atrocious war crime, which…

— Steven Pinker

“All the same, we ought to point out that if the kinds of poetry and representation which are designed merely to give pleasure can…

— Plato

“Odysseus is the statesman of the Iliad, the man in the middle, keeping what balance he can among the parties. He shows himself at…

— Eva Brann