Winston Churchill, speaking in 1946 at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, United States
Sinews of Peace. (2009, July 29). In Wikisource, The Free Library.
A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea.Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers ofJerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of theantique world,Art.
Benjamin Disraeli, as quoted inBuilding Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City, by Tristram Hunt. Page IX. Editor Hachette UK, 2010.ISBN 0297865943.
While many of the world's richest people live inLondon, four of its boroughs rank among the twenty poorest inEngland, and 27 percent of the city's population live inpoverty. London's polarized economic landscape is typical of "superstar" cities. Other leading cities ofEurope—Oslo,Amsterdam, Athens,Budapest,Madrid,Prague,Riga,Stockholm,Tallinn,Vienna,Vilnius—also suffer widening gaps between the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Joel Kotkin,The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (2020), p. 133
If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression, which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast accomplishments, and the brilliant fancy ofCicero; the withering fire ofJuvenal; the plastic imagination ofDante; the humour ofCervantes; the comprehension ofBacon; the wit ofButler; the supreme and universal excellence ofShakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'On Mitford's History of Greece',Knight's Quarterly Magazine (November 1824), quoted inThe Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1860), p. 178
Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain,—wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,—there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'On Mitford's History of Greece',Knight's Quarterly Magazine (November 1824), quoted inThe Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1860), p. 179
Athens, the eye ofGreece, mother of arts and eloquence, native to famous wits.
Athens, of a part of whose political lifeThucydides tells the story, must ever be an object of the highest interest to every political student, because in what has come down to us of her history and of her literature, we have so complete and so minute a picture of all the features of her public life, not only historians and biographers, but the philosophers, the orators, the poets, have combined to analyse the springs of her actions and to reveal her to us as she really was. And there was that in the Athenian character that made such a revelation the easier; for with all their faults—and they were many—they were a people deserving the praise whichPericles bestowed on them when he said: "Our social march is free, not only in regard to public affairs, but also in regard to intolerance of each other's diversity of daily pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbour for what he may do to please himself; nor do we ever put on those sour looks which, though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure to offend."
Stafford Northcote, speech at his installation as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh (30 January 1884), quoted inRectorial Addresses delivered before the University of Edinburgh 1859–1899, ed. Archibald Stodart-Walker (1900), pp. 241-242
