Famous quotes containing the words ancient, greek, grammar, tables, contracted and/or verbs:
“There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
—John Simon (b. 1925)
“Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)