Politicians From Greece

"To be more prompt to go to one’s friends in adversity than in prosperity."

"To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick."

"Suretyship, and then destruction."

"Seek no excess —all timely things are good."

"We had absolute consciousness that it was a historic moment... No struggle for what you believe in is ever futile."

"Why do I go on? Why I am doing this when I am 92 years and two months old? I could, after all, be sitting on a sofa in slippers with my feet up. So why do I do this? You think the man sitting opposite you is Manolis but you are wrong. I am not him. And I am not him because I have not forgotten that every time someone was about to be executed [during WWII], they said: 'Don't forget me. When you say good morning, think of me. When you raise a glass, say my name.' And that is what I am doing talking to you, or doing any of this. The man you see before you is all those people. And all this is about not forgetting them."

"The man who killed Kapodistrias, killed his own country."

"[…] Capodistrias's conduct in Switzerland has always done him proud. At first, the mission with which he was entrusted earned him the hostility of various parties whose interests he was jeopardising. Little by little his noble qualities were recognised, and today the Swiss unanimously mourn his loss; his name is also venerated by men of all persuasions."

"[…] of all those with an interest in our success, nobody acquitted himself with more consequence, goodwill and intelligence, and to greater effect, than Count Capo d’Istria. I met him 92 times and always found him true to himself, a most excellent guide, a most excellent adviser, and tirelessly patient, though what was happening in Switzerland frequently gave him just cause to give up in disgust. And the far more consequential negotiations over Poland and Saxony, which had been largely entrusted to him, could have given him an excuse to be indifferent to the interests of little Geneva."

"Victory shall be ours, but has to be in our hearts only the Greek sentiment. Anyone ready to listen servily to the foreign [powers] is a traitor."

"Δείξατε στον κόσμο ότι όλα τα ωραία μεγάλα λόγια ήταν μια καρέκλα και ένας μετακλειτός υπάλληλος"

"Στην πραγματικότητα κανείς δεν μπορεί να αποδείξει αν είναι γνήσια ή πλαστά τα “Πρωτόκολλα των Σοφών της Σιών”. Ομως ο καθένας μπορεί να καταλάβει αν εφαρμόζονται ή όχι. Αρα, ακόμη και αν είναι πλαστά, τα “Πρωτόκολλα των Σοφών της Σιών” εφαρμόζονται πλήρως. [...] οι Εβραίοι κάνουν τη δουλειά τους τόσο καλά ώστε σήμερα μπορούν και ελέγχουν σε ποσοστό 80% τουλάχιστον την αμερικανική εξωτερική πολιτική, ενώ οι ίδιοι είναι ένα έθνος ολίγων εκατομμυρίων."

"Στον καπιταλισμό οι κουμουνιστές είναι πάντα καλύτεροι"

"Κάθε μεσημέρι-βράδυ-πρωί ακούμε δηλώσεις και αντιδηλώσεις αυτού του κόμματος που λέγεται Νέα Δημοκρατία και που κατά την γνώμη μου είναι η ντροπή της Δεξιάς. [...] Δεν μπορώ να πιστέψω ότι θα μπορούσα να έχω οποιαδήποτε ιδεολογική ή πολιτική συγγένεια με αυτό το γελοίο τσίρκο."

"Ξέρεις τι ωραίο που είναι να είσαι αριστερός και να τρως αστακομακαρονάδα στα σύννεφα;"

"Πάντα η ηγεσία έχει την ευθύνη"

"Η διαφορά δεξιάς-αριστεράς να ξέρετε είναι αυτή: ο αριστερός ζει στον φαντασιακό κόσμο, πάντα συζητάει για το τι θα ήθελε να συμβαίνει ο δεξιός, εμείς δηλαδή, ζούμε στον πραγματικό κόσμο κοιτάμε να δούμε τι μπορεί να γίνει"

"Οι πολιτικοί μου αντίπαλοι προσπαθούν με αυτές τις γελοίες εναντίον μου κατηγορίες να ακυρώσουν τον πολιτικό μου λόγο"

"A single day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant."

"The sun is pure fire: so Posidonius in the seventh book of his Celestial Phenomena. And it is larger than the earth, as the same author says in the sixth book of his Physical Discourse. Moreover it is spherical in shape like the world itself according to this same author and his school."

"There are never any occasions when you need think yourself safe because you wield the weapons of Fortune; fight with your own! Fortune does not furnish arms against herself; hence men equipped against their foes are unarmed against Fortune herself."

"When men were scattered over the earth, protected by eaves or by the dug-out shelter of a cliff or by the trunk of a hollow tree, it was philosophy that taught them to build houses."

"Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care are not goods. But riches and health and similar conditions do none of these things; therefore, riches and health are not goods. Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care, but on the other hand create in it arrogance, vanity, and insolence, are evils. But things which are the gift of Fortune drive us into these evil ways. Therefore these things are not goods."

"Riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil."

"I cannot hide from you that I am quite nervous. I am not taking on this job at the easiest point in Greek history."

"It takes Greece forward in the sense that the financial system should be much more stable from now onwards. There is a promise of recapitalization of the banks, without any of the depositors having to bail in or anything to worry about. The process of reversing the negative effects of capital controls will start very quickly and will speedily return the banks to where they were before, hopefully on a far firmer footing. Any deal is only as good as what you make of it. Let's hope the Greek people will be able to make the best of this deal."

"It is a very tough agreement, with many thorns, and as for the question of who will implement it, that depends on who the Greek people trust to negotiate debt restructuring."

"The overall framework of the euro zone is in crisis — not from Syriza or the left, but because of the policies of austerity. Unless Europe moves in a more just and socially democratic direction, then it’s in danger."

"I made a decision that will burden me for the rest of my life. I don't know if we did the right thing, however I do know that we felt like we had no other choice but do what we did."

"It's a difficult deal, a deal for which only time will show if it is economically viable."

"In any transition period there is a clash of realities. In the 1930s people considered the eventual solutions, at first, to be unrealistic. It’s the same this time round. At first, in the euro crisis there was to be no bailout. Then no buying of government debt. Then no QE. Each of these things have happened. Some things which are now seen as unrealistic will change with the political balance of forces."

"I want to be honest with you. We did not achieve the agreement we expected before the January elections... I feel the deep ethical and political responsibility to put to your judgment all I have done, successes and failures."

"We don't claim that there is plenty of money. Greek people are not asking for money. They are asking for work and the ability to make a living."

"What's needed is patience and composure. The bank deposits of the Greek people are fully secure. The same applies to the payment of wage and pension — they are also guaranteed."

"Sophocles taught us that the greatest of all human laws is justice… and I think that is something we have to remember."

"Millions of Europeans looked with hope to this country, and it was Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza government (elected that January) [2015] that had the responsibility for keeping that window open, and for opening it up further for others. What these millions wanted a break from was not even true neoliberalism, but what I would call bankruptocracy — a new regime in which the greatest power was wielded by the most bankrupt bankers. Tsipras’s surrender in July 2015 closed that window of opportunity... Ever since he surrendered to the troika, Tsipras... dilemma put to progressives: “Who do you want to torture you — an enthusiastic torturer, or someone like me who doesn’t want to torture you but will do it to keep his job?” This was his line in September 2015 [in that year’s second general election, after Syriza caved to the troika]. But four years later, after pushing through the most naked, harshest austerity policies anywhere in Europe... he can no longer blackmail progressives with lesser-evil arguments... Can you believe that Tsipras has become best buddies with Benjamin Netanyahu?"

"I once spoke to a politician, a man that I respect and I will say the name: Alexis Tsipras. And speaking of this and the accords not to let [migrants] in, he explained the difficulties to me, but in the end, he spoke to me from the heart and said this phrase: ."

"I gave life to the walls a voice I gave them more friendly so that would become my company and the guards asked to know where they could find the paint.The walls of the cell kept the secret and the mercenaries searched everywhere but paint they could not find.Because they did not think for one moment that they should search into my veins."

"The teardrops which you will see flowing from our eyes you should never believe signs of despair. They are only promise promise for Fight."

"A match as a pen Blood on the floor as ink The forgotten gauze cover as paper But what should I write? I might just manage my address. This ink is strange; it clots. I write you from a prison in Greece."

"He who controls the sea controls everything."

"I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man."

"I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion."

"For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians; your mother commands me, and you command your mother."

"May I never sit on a tribunal where my friends shall not find more favor from me than strangers."

"Strike, if you will, but hear."

"I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness."

"Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor of all that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no experience. He could also excellently divine the good and evil which lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider the extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application, this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency."

"One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love."

"ἐν ᾧ τλάμων ὅδ᾽, οὐκ ἐγὼ μόνος, πάντοθεν βόρειος ὥς τις ἀκτὰ κυματοπλὴξ χειμερία κλονεῖται, ὣς καὶ τόνδε κατ᾽ ἄκρας δειναὶ κυματοαγεῖς ἆται κλονέουσιν ἀεὶ ξυνοῦσαι."