People From Athens

"As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion."

"Once, when he was applauded by rascals, he remarked, "I am horribly afraid I have done something wrong.""

"ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς ἡ αὐτὴ ἀρετή."

"Since I started with an anecdote, let me continue with one more: There is a Roma friend of mine, Babis, whom I randomly meet around my neighbourhood when I am in Greece. I have him in a passage in Z213: EXIT, so, when I see him around I say that I owe him royalties and invite him for a drink. Last time I saw him he stayed with us in a tavern up to the early hours of the morning, at which point I offered to give him a lift. When, a few minutes later, he got out of the car on a dark nondescript street, he made an on the spot decision about where to go and what to do next. As I now recall his solitary figure in this dark street while driving away, I come to think of Keats’s “burden of the Mystery”. After we get out of the non-thinking room in the huge mansion of life, we reach the splendidly colourful maiden-room of thought which entices us with the discoveries we make there, before we see it darken from the discovery of pain and suffering; and, as we realise that, we see the doors around us opening to dark corridors leading to the unknown. Who dares follow them when nothing is given, abandon planning ahead and open up to whatever may come? We carry with us a backpack of ideas, theories, insecurities and the detailed scenarios we project onto the future. Unlike us, outcasts, fugitives and people in the margins are the ones possessing the negative capability, the power to bear the “burden of the mystery”; immigrants cross seas that might engulf them. Their fear is overcome not only by the hope of a better life but also by their acceptance of those darker alleys, where time and space are created at the moment in which they are experienced. Z213: EXIT is the journey of such a man, whom I don’t know if it is right to call a “character” – in order to call him that, one should know more than what is found in the book and, perhaps, more than I know about him myself. ."

"Say you are invited to dinner, you arrive and the table is set. A succulent piece of steak is served, a little blood oozes out of the tender meat. Has that piece become so alien to its “history” that you would never wonder about its past? If you did, how far back would you go? Certainly as far as the kitchen, that is easy to do, but how about what happened before? The slaughterhouse or, possibly, the gruesome life of the animal? There’s a story behind the little blood that you see, a residue hinting at the end of a life. A trace that has come to reach you, and you might want to follow the thread and think about life as part of a system—the prearranged context surrounding the chair you have sat on and the clean dish in which your dinner was served."

"This is continuity, you travel, perhaps in your mind, a paper world real, God reeling up and down landscapes and buildings, knocks down, opens new roads, doesn’t like it, changes again, but there isn’t a seam, His world is onefold, and you perceive neither seam nor contradiction, continuity only."

"[...] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free."

"3:AM: To bring the conversation back down to earth, one thing I know, which is neither paradoxical nor contradictory, is your love of football and your team PAOK. Perhaps such simple pleasures can be considered a gentler form of hope?"

"And when you can no longer remember, just meaningless things here and there and you can't. But still try even then, as the twilight sets in, stand and look at the past, walk again along the corridors where your eyes used to wander, attentive ghosts, open the boxes, think of the other side of the wall. Sit at the side of the road and see yourself pass. See the web, see how the passages of the maze all lead again to the same point which does not exactly coincide with the exit."

"[...] a course laid between the seed and the snare"

"Solon's way of living was expensive and profuse and if in his poems, he speaks of pleasure with more freedom than becomes a philosopher, this is thought to be due to his mercantile life; he encountered many and great dangers, and sought his reward therefor in sundry luxuries and enjoyments."

"Athens, which like other cities was distracted and oppressed by a privileged class, avoided violence and appointed Solon to revise its laws. It was the happiest choice that history records. Solon was not only the wisest man to be found in Athens, but the most profound political genius of antiquity; and the easy, bloodless, and pacific revolution by which he accomplished the deliverance of his country was the first step in a career which our age glories in pursuing, and instituted a power which has done more than anything, except revealed religion, for the regeneration of society. The upper class had possessed the right of making and administering the laws, and he left them in possession, only transferring to wealth what had been the privilege of birth. To the rich who alone had the means of sustaining the burden of public service in taxation and war, Solon gave a share of power proportioned to the demands made on their resources. The poorest classes were exempt from direct taxes, but were excluded from office. Solon gave them a voice in electing magistrates from the classes above them, and the right of calling them to account. This concession... was the beginning of a mighty change. It introduced the idea that a man ought to have a voice in selecting those to whose rectitude and wisdom he is compelled to trust his fortune, his family, and his life. And this idea completely inverted the notion of human authority, for it inaugurated the reign of moral influence... Government by consent superseded government by compulsion, and the pyramid which had stood on a point was made to stand upon its base. By making every citizen the guardian of his own interest Solon admitted the element of Democracy into the State."

"Γηράσκω δ’ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος."

"As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change."

"Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them."

"πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:"

"Wealth I desire to have; but wrongfully to get it, I do not wish. Justice, even if slow, is sure."

"That city in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers."

"Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away."

"If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod."

"No fool can be silent at a feast."

"Consider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath."

"Do not counsel what is most pleasant, but what is best."

"An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off than him…He is the one who deserves to be described as happy. But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate."

"Rule, after you have first learned to submit to rule."

"Watch well each separate citizen, Lest having in his heart of hearts A secret spear, one still may come Saluting you with cheerful face, And utter with a double tongue The feigned good wishes of his wary mind."

"We're only here for a short time, so might as well have a good time."

"I'm happy doing what I'm doing, and if you have that kind of attitude then everything else from there on is a bonus."

"I wrote it about a friend of mine who married his high school sweet heart. They had a baby together and one day, when the baby was about four months old, my friends wife was driving down the road by herself, pulled over to the side and she just died in her car."

"Imagine how frustrating it is, being completely locked up and watching your family leave, your wife and children, and not being able to do anything about it."

"Once the song is done and recorded, I like to go back and then cut the drums, because then I know exactly what the song needs, and what it doesn't need."

"The Radiohead record, The Bends is my all-time favorite record on the planet"

"I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song."

"You can rock shit as loud as you want, as hard as you want, but there's a soft side to every artist. You gotta have something more to say other than ("throws up devil horns") "YEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!" There's gotta be more, otherwise you'd be fake."

"I also did some jail time a few years ago. Spent a whole summer in jail reading books. I pumped a ton of new knowledge and new thinking into myself."

"I don't want a fat mexican woman beating the crap out of my son."

"Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best."

"Yet is it more honourable, and just, and upright, and pleasing, to treasure in the memory good acts than bad."

"That ... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot."

"But if any other course, in any one's opinion, be better than this, let him, even though he be a private soldier, boldly give us his sentiments; for the safety, which we all seek, is a general concern."

"On making prisoners of our generals, they expected that we should perish from want of direction and order. It is incumbent, therefore, on our present commanders to be far more vigilant than our former ones, and on those under command to be far more orderly, and more obedient to their officers, at present than they were before…On the very day that such resolution is passed, they will see before them ten thousand Clearchuses instead of one."

"θάλαττα! θάλαττα!"

"If the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost, and in all labours for toil and fatigue. This will help to make him beloved of his followers."

"The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.” “Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”"

"Clearchus spoke, and his words were few; "Conquerors do not, as a rule, give up their arms.""

"Every one of you is the leader."

"As to what happened next, it is possible to maintain that the hand of heaven was involved, and also possible to say that when men are desperate no one can stand up to them."

"It is common opinion among us in regard to beauty and wisdom that there is an honourable and a shameful way of bestowing them. For to offer one’s beauty for money to all comers is called prostitution; but we think it virtuous to become friendly with a lover who is known to be a man of honour. So is it with wisdom. Those who offer it to all comers for money are known as sophists, prostitutors of wisdom."

"In this mood he [Proxenus] threw himself into the projects of Cyrus, and in return expected to derive from this essay the reward of a great name, large power, and wide wealth. But for all that he pitched his hopes so high, it was none the less evident that he would refuse to gain any of the ends he set before him wrongfully. Righteously and honourably he would obtain them, if he might, or else forego them."

"The most delightful of all music, that of your own praises."