“Typical of the limitations, even the contradictions of life, is the fact that what is most worth having can often only be had at the peril of life itself.”

“The city-state was the means by which the Greek consciously strove to make the life both of the community and of the individual more excellent than it was before.”

“It is an interesting, though idle, speculation, what would be the effect on us if all our reformers, revolutionaries, planners, politicians, and life-arrangers in general were soaked in Homer from their youth up, like the Greeks. They might realize that on the happy day when there is a refrigerator in every home, and two in none, when we all have the opportunity of working for the common good (whatever that is), when Common Man (whoever he is) is triumphant, though not improved--that men will still come and go like the generations of leaves in the forest; that he will still be weak, and the gods strong and incalculable; that the quality of a man matters more than his achievement; that violence and recklessness will still lead to disaster, and that this will fall on the innocent as well as on the guilty.”

“...unless our standards of civilization are comfort and contraptions, Athens from (say) 480 to 380 was clearly the most civilized society that has yet existed.”

“In fact, life itself is a contradiction if only because birth is the direct cause, in every single case, of death”

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”

“Often people that settle in life are those that only do what they can with what they have and where they are. Never settle for someone that didn't know your worth from the beginning, or build a life without God in it. Live beyond your low expectations.”