"The Greek might admit that honesty is the best policy, but he tries everything else first... Everyone complains that the Athenian retailers adulterate their goods, give short weight and short change despite the government inspectors, shift the fulcrum of their scales towards the measuring weights, and lie at every opportunity; the sausages, for example, are accused of being dogs... The politicians are not much better; there is hardly a man in Athenian public life that is not charged with crookedness; an honest man like Aristides is considered exciting news, almost a monstrosity.... Thucydides reports that men are more anxious to be called clever than honest, and suspect honesty of simplicity"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. XIII The Morals and Manners of the Greeks, Sec IV Morals, P.375
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Story of Civilization
288 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Story of Civilization →
Related Quotes
"The Argives ascribed the foundation of their city to Pelasgic Argus, the hero with a hundred eyes; and its first flou…"
"Apparently the legislators felt that to alter certain customs, or to establish new ones, the safest procedure would b…"
"When an advanced thinker asked Lycurgus to establish a democracy Lycurgus replied, “Begin, my friend, by setting it u…"
"He [Solon] laid it down that those who remained neutral in seditions should lose their citizenship, for he felt that …"
"I wish to tell as much as I can, in as little space as I can, of the contributions that genius and labor have made to…"
"Man is not willingly a political animal. The human male associates with his fellows less by desire than by habit, imi…"
"If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes …"
""For barbarism is always around civilization, amid it and beneath it, ready to engulf it by arms, or mass migration, …"
"The civilization of Babylonia was not as fruitful for humanity as Egypt’s, not as varied and profound as India’s, not…"
"He [Solon] made it a crime to speak evil of the dead, or to speak evil of the living in temples, courts, or public of…"