Whether or not Freud was right when he muttered in exasperation that the Irish were the only people who could not be helped by psychoanalysis, there … - Thomas Cahill

The Greek world will continue in almost constant cultural revolution from the time of Homer to the day Rome brings Greece to its knees in the second century B.C. ...the longest trajectory of fluid development in any society known to history.

Solon was a sort of Athenian Franklin D. Roosevelt... He was an aristocratic reformer who understood instinctively that the aristocracy's monopoly on power had to be loosened and some power given to the lesser orders if social peace was to be shored up.

The Greeks never thought to unite all Greek speakers in one political union. Because each Greek gloried in his singular excellence—and each Greek clan gloried similarly—it was hard enough to unite a city. Each city or polis—from which come our words politics, politician, metropolis—thought itself unrivaled in some essential quality and reveled in its reputation.