George Grote

“ It is the privilege only of him who has undergone the purifying influence of philosophy, and who has spent his life in trying to detach himself as much as possible from communion with the body — to be relieved after death from the obligation of fresh embodiment, that his soul may dwell by itself in a region akin to its own separate nature: passing out of the world of sense, of transient phenomena, and of mere opinion, into a distinct world where it will be in full presence of the eternal Ideas, essences, and truth ”

“ To this point he attracted the looks of all Europe. There he awaited his convoys, his re-enforcements, and the stragglers of his army; certain that his soldiers would all be rallied by his victory, by the allurements of a rich booty, by the imposing sight of captive Moscow, and, above all, by his own glory, which, from the summit of this immense pile of ruins, still shone attractive like a beacon upon a rock. ”

“ He knew that, as between Corinth and Athens, war had already begun at Potidæa; and his business, throughout nearly all of a very emphatic speech is, to show that the Peloponnesian confederacy, and especially Sparta, is bound to take instant part in it, not less by prudence than by duty. He employs the most animated language to depict the ambition, the unwearied activity, the personal effort abroad as well as at home, the quick resolves, the sanguine hopes never dashed by failure,—of Athens; as contrasted with the cautious, home-keeping, indolent, scrupulous routine of Sparta. ”

“ Mais il est très-important d’observer que ni la simple sensation des objets présens, ni la peinture que fait l’imagination des objets absens, ni le simple rapport de distance ou d’activité réciproque, commun aux uns et aux autres, ne sont précisément la chose que l’esprit voudroit désigner par le nom général d’existence; c’est le fondement même de ces rapports, supposé commun au moi, à l’objet vu et à l’objet simplement distant, sur lequel tombe véritablement et le nom d’existence et notre affirmation, lorsque nous disons qu’une chose existe. ”

“ It was thus that Nikias, quite contrary to his own purpose, not only imparted to the enterprise a gigantic magnitude which its projectors had never contemplated, but threw into it the whole soul of Athens, and roused a burst of ardor beyond all former example. Every man present, old as well as young, rich and poor, of all classes and professions, was eager to put down his name for personal service. Some were tempted by the love of gain, others by the curiosity of seeing so distant a region, others again by the pride and supposed safety of enlisting in so irresistible an armament. ”

“ Plato as a preacher holds one language: as a philosopher and analyst, another. When he is exhorting youth to justice, or dissuading them from injustice, he thinks himself entitled to depict the lot of the just man in the most fascinating colours, that of the unjust man as the darkest contrast against it, — without any careful observance of the line between truth and fiction: the fiction, if such there be, becomes in his eyes a pia fraus, excused or even ennobled by its salutary tendency. ”

“ As at Athens under the pressure of the Xerxeian invasion—the energies of all the citizens, rich and poor, young and old, had been called forth for repulse of the common enemy, and had been not more than enough to achieve it. As at Athens after the battles of Salamis and Platæa, so at Syracuse after the destruction of the Athenian besiegers—the people, elate with the plenitude of recent effort, and conscious that the late successful defence had been the joint work of all, were in a state of animated democratical impulse, eager for the utmost extension and equality of political rights. ”

“ If the habits of the Scythians were such as to create in the near observer no other feeling than repugnance, their force at least inspired terror. They appeared in the eyes of Thucydidês so numerous and so formidable, that he pronounces them irresistible, if they could but unite, by any other nation within his knowledge. Herodotus, too, conceived the same idea of a race among whom every man was a warrior and a practised horse-bowman, and who were placed by their mode of life out of all reach of an enemy’s attack. ”

“ Yet whoever could not answer this question was wandering in darkness — had no standard by which his judgments were regulated, and which kept them consistent with one another — no rule which he knew and could stand by for the guidance of his life. Not knowing what Justice and Virtue are, it was impossible to be just and virtuous: not knowing what Good is, we not only fail to reach it, but are certain to embrace evil instead. Such a condition, to any one capable of thought, made life not worth having. ”

“ It was now an hour since Murat and the long and close column of his cavalry had entered Moscow: they penetrated to the centre of that gigantic body, as yet untouched, but inanimate. Struck with profound astonishment at finding a solitude so complete, they replied to the stillness of this modern Thebes by a silence equally solemn. These warriors listened, with a secret shuddering, to the sound of their horses' steps among these deserted palaces. They were amazed to hear nothing but the noise they themselves made amid such numerous habitations. ”

“ Let us not plunge madly into dishonor and ruin, nor incur the enmity of our own fathers and friends; who are in the cities which will take arms against us,—and will take arms justly, if we, who abstained from seizing any barbaric city, even when we were in force sufficient, shall nevertheless now plunder the first Grecian city into which we have been admitted. As far as I am concerned, may I be buried ten thousand fathoms deep in the earth, rather than see you do such things; and I exhort you, too, as Greeks, to obey the leaders of Greece. ”

“ It is only on the ground of common good, that we Lacedæmonians can justify ourselves for liberating any city against its own will; but as we are conscious of desiring only extinction of the empire of others, not acquisition of empire for ourselves, we should fail in our duty if we suffered you to obstruct that liberation which we are now carrying to all. Consider well my words, then: take to yourselves the glory of beginning the era of emancipation for Greece, save your own properties from damage, and attach an ever-honorable name to the community of Akanthus. ”

“ But it was inconsistent with these attributes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human experience: we, as agents, act with a view to supply some want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to accomplish some object desired but not yet attained — in short, to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happiness: the gods already have all that agents strive to get, and more than agents ever do get; their condition is one not of agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. ”

“ L’identité primitive des intelligences n’est qu’une fiction logique sans réalité — une simple abstraction de langage, qui ne repose que sur l’identité du mot avec lui-même. Tout se reduit à la possibilité abstraite des mêmes développemens, dans les mêmes conditions d’hérédité et d’éducation — mais aussi de développemens différens dans des circonstances différentes: c’est à dire, que l’intelligence de chacun n’est identique à celle de tous, qu’au moment où elle n’est pas encore proprement une intelligence. ”

“ You discover nothing while your eye is fixed on Archelaus himself: far from presenting any indications of misery, which Sokrates professes to discover, he has gained much of what men admire as good wherever they see it. But when you turn to the persons whom he has killed, banished, or ruined — to the mass of suffering which he has inflicted — and to the widespread insecurity which such acts of successful iniquity spread through all societies where they become known — there is no lack of argument to justify that sentiment which prompts a reflecting spectator to brand him as a disgraceful man. ”

“ How can there be a traitor more palpable than the man, who, favored and upheld by Sparta, first betrayed her to you; and then again, after having received every mark of confidence from you, betrayed you to her,—handing over the harbor of Sikyon to your enemies? Was not he a despot without reserve, the man who exalted slaves, not only into freemen, but into citizens? the man who despoiled, banished, or slew, not criminals, but all whom he chose, and most of all, the chief citizens? ”

“ For the further we travel back into the past, the more do we recede from the clear day of positive history, and the deeper do we plunge into the unsteady twilight and gorgeous clouds of fancy and feeling. It was one of the agreeable dreams of the Grecian epic, that the man who travelled far enough northward beyond the Rhipæan mountains, would in time reach the delicious country and genial climate of the virtuous Hyperboreans—the votaries and favorites of Apollo, who dwelt in the extreme north beyond the chilling blasts of Boreas. ”

“ Out of this timocracy, or timarchy, the city will next pass into an oligarchy, or government of wealth. The rich will here govern, to the exclusion of the poor. Reason, in the timocracy, was under the dominion of energy or courage: in the oligarchy, it will be under the dominion of appetite. The love of wealth will become predominant, instead of the love of force and aggrandisement. ”

“ Bound together by the strongest common feeling of active antipathy to Athens, the whole confederacy was full of hope and confidence for this immediate forward march,—so gratifying at once both to their hatred and to their love of plunder, by the hand of destruction laid upon the richest country in Greece,—and presenting a chance even of terminating the war at once, if the pride of the Athenians should be so intolerably stung as to provoke them to come out and fight. ”

“ But the narrow dimensions of the harbor would have nullified her superiority at all times, and placed her even at great disadvantage,—without the means of twisting and turning her triremes so as to strike only at a vulnerable point of the enemy,—compared with the thick, heavy, straightforward butting of the Syracusans; like a nimble pugilist of light weight contending, in a very confined ring, against superior weight and muscle. [491] For the mere land-fight on shipboard, Athenians had not only no advantage, but had on the contrary the odds against them. ”

“ Not only the sincere pleasure-haters, but also other theorists indicated by Aristotle, would have warmly applauded this pure ethical doctrine of Speusippus; not from real agreement with it, but in order to edify the audience. They would say to one another aside: “This is not true; but we must do all we can to make people believe it. Since every one is too fond of pleasures, and suffers himself to be enslaved by them, we must pull in the contrary direction, in order that we may thereby bring people into the middle line.” ”

“ We know well, from other and independent evidence, what Schleiermacher really was, that he was not only one of the most accomplished scholars, but one of the most liberal and estimable men of his age. But how different would be our appreciation if we had no other evidence to judge by except the dicta of opponents, and even distinguished opponents, like Hermann! If there be any point clear in the history of philosophy, it is the uncertainty of all judgments, respecting writers and thinkers, founded upon the mere allegations of opponents. ”

“ When Dionysius saw the Ionians assembled at Ladê, willing, eager, full of talk and mutual encouragement, but untrained and taking no thought of discipline, or nautical practice, or coöperation in the hour of battle,—he saw the risk which they ran for want of these precautions, and strenuously remonstrated with them: “Our fate hangs on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia: either to be freemen or slaves,—and slaves too, caught after running away. Set yourself at once to work and duty,—you will then have trouble indeed at first, with certain victory and freedom afterwards. ”

“ The viceroy summoned it: as it advanced, it threw a brigade into the suburb on the left, and another into the town on the right. It consisted of Italians, recruits, who had never before been in action. They ascended, shouting enthusiastically, ignorant of the danger or despising it, from that singular disposition which renders life less dear in its flower than in its decline, either because while young we fear death less from the feeling of its distance, or because at that age, rich in years and lavish of everything, we are prodigal of life as the wealthy are of their fortune. ”

“ For more than thirty years preceding,—from times earlier than the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,—the Spartans had professed to interfere only for the purpose of liberating Greece, and of putting down the usurped ascendency of Athens. All the allies of Sparta had been invited into strenuous action,—all those of Athens had been urged to revolt,—under the soul-stirring cry of “Freedom to Greece.” ”

“ Well! you would have thanked me for killing him anywhere out of Thebes; why not in Thebes also, when he has come hither only for the purpose of doing you new wrong in addition to the past? Where among Greeks has impunity ever been assured to traitors, deserters, or despots? Recollect, that you have passed a vote that exiles from any one of your allied cities might be seized as outlaws in any other. Now Euphron is a condemned exile, who has ventured to come back to Sikyon without any vote of the general body of allies. How can any one affirm that he has not justly incurred death? ”