Quote of the Day (Thucydides, on the Strong and the Weak)

“You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." ―The Athenians to the Melians, quoted in Thucydides (c. 460-c. 395 BC), History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 5, translated by Richard Crawley (1910)

Quote of the Day (Heraclitus, on Stupidity)

“Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed.”— Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535 BC–475 BC), Fragments

The attached image of Heraclitus was created by Dutch baroque painter Johannes Moreelse (1603-1634).

Quote of the Day (Nikos Kazantzakis, on ‘What a Strange Machine Man Is!’)

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out come sighs, laughter, and dreams.”— Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek (1946)

The image accompanying this post comes from the 1964 adaptation of Zorba the Greek, with Anthony Quinn in the title role.

(Thanks to my friend Holly for bringing this to my attention.)

Quote of the Day (Sophocles, on Love)

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”—Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (496 B.C.-406 B.C.), Oedipus at Colonus (401 B.C.)

The image accompanying this post, from John Ford’s classic 1956 western The Searchers, comes about as close as I can think of to embodying the power of that word “love.”

In the scenes just preceding this, John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards has come across, after five years of fruitless searching, the niece seized in a Comanche attack that has left the rest of her family dead. Edwards is so revolted by the thought that she has become one of the wives of the fierce Indian chief Scar--and, implicitly, of the possibility of miscegenation from that union--that he vows to kill her. Now, as he sweeps the smaller, powerless Debbie (played by Natalie Wood) up in his arms, he has his chance.

But, in the end, Edwards—a bitter, bigoted loner—can’t go through with the act. Family ties—love—overcome the vengefulness and growing madness of this frontier Ahab.

“Let's go home, Debbie,” he says softly and invitingly.

Is Ethan freed of “all the weight and pain of life”? As we see him step away from the doorway of the homestead and walk alone  into the distance, the answer is clearly no. But his reconciliation with his niece is a profoundly redemptive act, one that ensures the climax of his search will not be the kind of cascading family bloodshed at the heart of Sophocles and so many other Greek tragedians. 

At least partly for that reason, this moment is one of my favorites in the entire history of American film.

Quote of the Day (Pericles, on Heroes)

“Heroes have the whole earth for their tomb.”—Athenian statesman and general Pericles (494 BC-429 BC), “Pericles’ Funeral Oration,” in Thucydides (460 BC-395 BC), The History of the Peloponnesian War  

(The image accompanying this post, Pericles’ Funeral Oration, was created by German painter Philipp Foltz.)
Heroes

 

Quote of the Day (Plutarch, on the Power of Perseverance)

“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.” — Greek historian, biographer, and essayist Plutarch (c. 46-120), Parallel Lives

Quote of the Day (Nikos Kazantzakis, on ‘What a Strange Machine Man Is’)

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.” —Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek (1946)

(The image accompanying this post is not, I need hardly say, of the author, but of Anthony Quinn, the Oscar-nominated star of the 1964 film adaptation of Zorba the Greek.)