Edith Hamilton Quotes

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

Very few great artists feel the giant agony of the world.

Venus herself graced their marriage with her presence, but what happened after that we do not know, except that Pygmalion named the maiden Galatea, and that their son, Paphos, gave his name to Venus’ favorite city.

The hero can prove what he is only by dying. The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat.
Such an attitude toward life seems at first sight fatalistic, but actually the decrees of an inexorable fate played no more part in the Norseman’s scheme of existence than predestination did in St. Paul’s or in that of his militant Protestant followers, and for precisely the same reason.

Help me to vengeance,” she said. “Give the Greeks a bitter homecoming. Stir up your waters with wild whirlwinds when they sail. Let dead men choke the bays and line the shores and reefs.

Love cannot live where there is no trust.

A silly man lies awake all night, Thinking of many things. When the morning comes he is worn with care, And his trouble is just as it was.

"Far better die," she said. She took in her hand a casket which held herbs for killing, but as she sat there with it, she thought of life and the delightful things that are in the world; and the sun seemed sweeter than ever before.

To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.

The modern mind is never popular in its own day. People hate being made to think.

Pain is the most individualizing thing on earth. It is
true that it is the great common bond as well, but that
realization comes only when it is over. To suffer is to
be alone. To watch another suffer is to know the barrier
that shuts each of us away by himself. Only individuals
can suffer.

"The American classicist Edith Hamilton once described the great works of literature, "the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.

That which is fated must come to pass, but against my fate no man can kill me.

All things are at odds when God sets a thinker loose on the planet

Æschylus was the poet of a new era. He bridged the tremendous gulf between the poetry of the beauty of the outside world and the poetry of the beauty of the pain of the world.