Ancient Quotes

Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time.
Margaret Atwood

Time, Find, Meaning

Since ancient times, people from throughout Asia have brought to Japan their talents, knowledge and energy, helping to lay the basis for Japan's existence as a country.
Daisaku Ikeda

Knowledge, Country, Energy

Ancient eschatological texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche that seem to transcend race and culture and originate in the collective unconscious.
Stanislav Grof

Actually, Culture, Seem

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.
Loren Eiseley

Time, War, Long

If we were living in ancient Rome or Greece, I would be considered sickly and unattractive. The times dictate that thin is better for some strange reason, which I think is foolish.
Gwyneth Paltrow

Living, Strange, Reason

Mother's taste was eclectic and ranged from the ancient world to the contemporary from Europe to the U.S.
David Rockefeller

Mother, Europe, Taste

Ancient metaphysics underwent many changes at the hands of medieval thinkers who brought it in line with the dominant religious and theological movements of their day.
Wilhelm Dilthey

Religious, Changes, Line

I am obsessed with the whole Victoriana thing, the whole Jack the Ripper London era, the grayness of it, the haunted feeling of it, all ancient and bloody.
Florence Welch

Feeling, Whole, London

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.
Hu Shih

Religion, Great, Simple

There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing civilized societies which have somehow managed to exist for many centuries and are still in being though they have had no help from the traveler in solving their problems.
Walter Lippmann

Good, Help, Nothing

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
Richard Stallman

Idea, Times, Practice

The center of Western culture is Greece, and we have never lost our ties with the architectural concepts of that ancient civilization.
Stephen Gardiner

Lost, Culture, Western

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either.
Colin Quinn

Life, Living, Tell

In a country like France, so ancient, their history is full of outstanding people, so they carry a heavy weight on their back. Who could write in French after Proust or Flaubert?
Manuel Puig

History, Country, After

I do not read the ancient languages, but I am beginning to study Greek.
Anne Rice

Study, Beginning, Read

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
Joseph Brodsky

State, Language, Inevitable

Meditation while walking has a long, noble history in ancient spiritual disciplines.
Andrew Weil

History, Spiritual, Long

Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.
Andrew Weil

Travel, Long, Human

For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful.
Barbara Ehrenreich

Time, Good, God

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.
Richard Russo

Tired, Thought, Why

The Olympic Games are highly commercialised. They purport to follow the traditions of an ancient athletics competition, but today it is the commercial aspect that is most apparent. I have seen how, through sport, cities and corporations compete against each other for financial gain.
Ai Weiwei

Today, Through, Against

The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.
Arthur Keith

Liberty, Problem, Between

To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.
Steve Lacy

Living, Weed, Spirit

There's an ancient tension between wanting to savor the world as it is and wanting to improve on the world as given.
Leon Kass

Between, Tension, Improve

I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment.
David Mitchell

The vegetarian movement is an ancient movement and is not quite a modern one.
Morarji Desai

Quite, Modern, Movement

Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back.
Robert Morgan

Love, Poetry, Fact

The ancient Greeks noticed that a man with arms and legs extended described a circle, with his navel as the center.
Stephen Gardiner

Legs, Noticed, Circle

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe.
Kevin Rudd

Great, History, Art

After all, you're not exactly a nation like all the other nations. You are unique, if only because you are such an ancient people, and because of the way you are spread all over the world and your obvious success in many fields.
Jean-Marie Le Pen

Success, After, Nation

Share with your Friends

Everyone likes a good quote - don't forget to share.

Related Definition

Ancient Definition

Holbrook Jackson

Popular Topics

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

Get Social with BrainyQuote

BrainyQuote Desktop

BrainyQuote Mobile

Site

Quote of the Day

Social

BQ on Pinterest

Syndication

Funny Quote Feed

Love Quote Feed

Nature Quote Feed

About Us