{"id":5460,"date":"2026-05-27T11:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/prosopikotites-gia-tin-ellada\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T08:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:36:29","slug":"prosopikotites-gia-tin-ellada","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/prosopikotites-gia-tin-ellada\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices Looking at Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Voices Looking at Greece\nNot as proof. As recognition.<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Voices from the World on Greece and Greek Culture<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Anthony Eden<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom<\/i><\/p>

\u201cIt was said in Athens two thousand years ago that the secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.
The Greeks, through their \u2018No\u2019s\u2019, give new life to their great classical tradition.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Arthur C. Clarke<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cIf the insight of the Greeks had matched their genius, the Industrial Revolution might have begun a thousand years before Columbus.
In our own time, we would not merely be circling the Moon, but might already have reached other nearby planets.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Arthur Koestler<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cBefore the Pythagoreans, no one had conceived that mathematical relationships held the secret of the universe.
Twenty-five centuries later, Europe is still both blessed and burdened by their legacy.
In non-European civilizations, the idea that numbers are the key to both wisdom and power seems never to have arisen.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

(On \u201cEnthusiasm\u201d \u2014 anonymous formulation, commonly attributed)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greeks understood the mysterious power of the hidden side of things.
They gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language: enthusiasm, from en-theos \u2014 \u2018the god within\u2019.
The greatness of human action is measured by the inspiration from which it springs.
Blessed is the one who carries a god within.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

George Bernard Shaw<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cIf your home library does not contain the works of the ancient Greek writers, then you live in a house without light.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff<\/i><\/b><\/p>

German philologist<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greek nation stands at the forefront of humanity.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Leonard Bloomfield<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Linguist<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWhere other peoples take things for granted, the Greeks possess the gift of wonder.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

C. M. Bowra<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Warden of Wadham College, Oxford<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greeks are an almost mythical people, occupying a privileged position in the development of European civilization.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00c9mile Brun<\/i><\/b><\/p>

French philosopher<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe roots of the tree of life and knowledge lie in the land of Greece.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Jacob Bryant<\/i><\/b><\/p>

British scholar<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece was the true cradle of freedom, where the first states were forged. We are the pupils of those great men in the principles of science, morality, and good governance.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

J. B. Bury<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Historian, Cambridge<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWe owe everything to the Greeks. They were the first to apply criticism to facts. They founded history, poetry, letters, art, philosophy \u2014 and thus, history itself.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Lord Byron<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cHad it not been for Greece, we might still be barbarians and idolaters.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Albert Camus<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece taught us first that free people can be brave, and that no defeat is final. This small nation proved worthy of its history.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Cicero<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece surpassed us in learning and in literature.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Georges Clemenceau<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greeks are a small people, but great in their culture, having benefited humanity throughout the ages.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Bill Clinton<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWe are all Greeks.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Cotineau<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece is like those exquisite drinks: once you taste them, you never forget them.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Jacqueline de Romilly<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWhere the modern world speaks of rights, the Greeks spoke of duty.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Edith Hamilton<\/i><\/b><\/p>

American educator and author<\/i><\/p>

\u201cI came early to the Greeks and found answers in them. The great men of Greece directed all their actions toward the immortality of the soul. We do not truly act as if we believed in the immortality of the soul, and that is why we are where we are.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Egger<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cCivilized nations are the moral descendants of the proud and brilliant Greeks.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

T. S. Eliot<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cEuropean literature has Greek and Latin blood. These are not two different systems of circulation, but one. For through Rome one can trace our Greek origin.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Earth bears the Parthenon proudly, as the finest ornament upon her girdle.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Frederick the Great of Prussia<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWe are children of the Greeks.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Val\u00e9ry Giscard d\u2019Estaing<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cEurope without Greece is like a child without a birth certificate.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greeks are our teachers; I admire them as unsurpassed minds.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u201cThe Greeks are my kin, they are my teachers. I admire them as unparalleled masters of expression and form, and for their ideal way of life. What the heart and mind are to the body, Greece is to humanity.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u201cDamned Greek, how small and insignificant I am before you!\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mikhail Gorbachev<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWe all originate from Greece; that is where our roots lie.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Henry Miller<\/i><\/b><\/p>

American writer<\/i><\/p>

\u201cTo those who think that Greece today has no importance, I must say that they could not be more mistaken. Modern Greece, like ancient Greece, is of the highest importance to anyone seeking to discover himself.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Adolf Hitler<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe future of humanity lies in the combination of German technology and the Greek spirit.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

(Presented here strictly as a historical quotation, not as endorsement.)<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Wilhelm von Humboldt<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Prussian diplomat and philosopher<\/i><\/p>

\u201cOnly among the Greeks do we find the idea of what we would wish to be and to produce. From the Greeks we take something more than earthly \u2014 almost divine. For us, the Greeks stand outside the cycle of history. Knowledge of the Greeks is not merely pleasant, useful, or necessary; in them alone we find the image of what we ought to wish to be and to create.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Jean Marving<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe closer I move toward the end of my life, the more deeply I feel bound to Greece. The very idea of her ennobles me and makes me almost immaterial.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Jonathan Miller<\/i><\/b><\/p>

American who fought in Greece as a volunteer.<\/i><\/p>

\u201cI have lived as a Greek, and with the Greeks I am prepared to suffer for the cause of religion and freedom. My life is devoted to the overthrow of the Turkish Empire. God is on the side of the Greeks.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Immanuel Kant<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cMathematics as a science found its path among the admirable people of the Greeks. The observation that the Egyptians had no conception of geometry as a science is reinforced by their inability to calculate the height of the pyramids.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Leland Stone<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cFor the Greeks, freedom is life itself, and death is merely an episode.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Liddell<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greek landscape is the most beautiful consolation for one who mourns a lost paradise.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Livingstone<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cHellenism\u2014and the world\u2014owe to Plato the survival of civilization. He is the father of the great philosophical systems of Hellenism, which so profoundly influenced human life. Among all peoples, only the Greeks dreamed the dream of an excellent life. The most characteristic quality of the Greeks is beauty.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Ludwig I of Bavaria<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWhatever is most wondrous in the annals of the world is connected with Greece. O Greece, homeland of the most illustrious heroes, glory of the Muses, womb of the inimitable arts, admiration of the world.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Andr\u00e9 Malraux<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThere is a hidden Greece in the heart of every European.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mackenzie King<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Prime Minister of Canada<\/i><\/p>

\u201cWhen the cradle of the noblest civilization known to humanity\u2014the country to which we owe all that makes life higher and more beautiful\u2014is subjected to such an attack, the place of all true people is at her side.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe leadership of humanity\u2019s civilization unquestionably belongs to the Greek nation.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Friedrich Nietzsche<\/i><\/b><\/p>

From The Birth of Tragedy<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cI wish that the Germans, instead of being Hellenizing phantoms, might become Greeks. Of all human races, the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most justifiably enviable, the most enchanting\u2014those who most carry us away\u2014are the Greeks. Like a charioteer guiding the chariot, they hold in their hands the reins of our art.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Friedrich Nietzsche (extended passage)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cIn every period of its development, Western European culture has attempted to free itself from the Greeks. This attempt is permeated with deep resentment, because whatever it created\u2014seemingly original and worthy of admiration\u2014lost color and life when compared to the Greek model, shrank, and ended up resembling a cheap copy, a caricature. [\u2026] All the poisons of envy, arrogance, and hatred have proved insufficient to disturb their magnificent beauty. Thus, people continue to feel shame and fear before the Greeks. [\u2026] The Greeks are the charioteers of every emerging civilization, and almost always both the chariots and the horses of later civilizations are of far poorer quality than the charioteers themselves, who ultimately take delight in driving the chariot toward the abyss, which they themselves overcome with an Achilles-like leap.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Friedrich Nietzsche (alternative formulation)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWith a great, genius people, the same occurs as with a genius individual. Even the smallest expressions of life bear the mark of genius. The Greeks are like genius itself: simple. That is why they are immortal teachers. Their institutions and creations bear the stamp of simplicity\u2014so much so that one often stands in awe at how uniquely simple they are. And, paradoxically, they are just as deep as they are simple. [\u2026] The world may be as dark as it wishes, but it suffices to interpose a fragment of Greek life, and it is immediately flooded with light\u2026 We shall try to learn from the Greeks, and we shall teach by guiding ourselves by their example. This will be our task.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

Pieshaud<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWe cannot deny the spirit we received from Greece without risking the loss of our civilization forever.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Luigi Pirandello<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cI am from Sicily, that is, from Greater Greece, and there is still much of Greece in Sicily.
Measure, rhythm, and harmony still live there.
Moreover, I myself am of Greek origin.
Yes, yes \u2014 do not be surprised: my family name is Pyr\u00e1ngelos; Pirandello is nothing but a phonetic alteration of Pyr\u00e1ntzelo.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Salvatore Quasimodo<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cI believe that genuine, spiritual people originate from Greece.
To Greece they owe their civilization, the clarity of their thought, and above all a philosophically grounded approach to life and to human problems.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Frederico Sagredo<\/i><\/b><\/p>

Basque writer and politician<\/i><\/p>

\u201cWestern civilization was born in Greece and, both at its origin and throughout its future development, has always remained Greek \u2014 never the result of contributions from any other region or nation.
For this reason, it is not enough merely to know Greek linguistic terms; these are often forgotten.
The Romans used to say that Greece was the mother of all knowledge, and this truth has not changed since.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Friedrich von Schiller<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe study of Plutarch elevates the flaccid humanity of our age, making it better and more vital.
The Greeks astonish us not only through their simplicity, which is foreign to our times. They are at the same time our rivals \u2014 often our models \u2014 precisely in those points of superiority from which we seek relief when we regret the artificial character of our own ways.
We see admirable human beings who, by uniting wholeness of form with wholeness of substance \u2014 philosophical and creative, gentle and powerful \u2014 impart youthful vitality to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

(An alternative formulation attributed to him):<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWherever I turn my thoughts, wherever I direct my soul, I see you before me, I find you.
I long for Art \u2014 Poetry, Theatre, Architecture \u2014 and there you stand, first and unsurpassed.
I seek Science \u2014 Mathematics, Philosophy, Medicine \u2014 and again you are supreme and unrivalled.
I thirst for Democracy, for Equality before the Law, and once more you stand before me, incomparable and unshadowed.
Accursed Greek, accursed Knowledge! Why did I touch you? To feel how small I am, insignificant, nothing? Why do you not leave me to my misery and my careless peace?\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Heinrich Schliemann<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cEverything I did, I did in order to revive my beloved Greece.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Percy Bysshe Shelley<\/i><\/b><\/p>

English poet<\/i><\/p>

\u201cWe are all Greeks. Our laws, our religion, our literature, and our arts have their roots in Greece.
Greece came into the world to represent, in the most perfect form, the beauty of moral and intellectual life.
The Greeks are our teachers and creators \u2014 gods for us to worship.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Siegfried (reference to Marathon)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWhen the Greeks fought at Marathon against the spiritually incoherent mass of the Persian satrap, they fought as a people fully conscious of their right to a free political life.
At Marathon, the consciousness of humanity regarding the citizen as the bearer not only of obligations but also of rights was born.
We, the people of the West, must reverently bow our knees at this place where human dignity was founded.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Eduard Spranger<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGerman individuality, in order to become a nation \u2014 that is, a people with national consciousness \u2014 sought the assistance of the Greek spirit.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Andr\u00e9 Tardieu<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cBy the term \u2018civilization\u2019 we express the fundamental conditions of the physical and moral life of peoples.
The basic concepts of Greek civilization constitute our moral capital.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Leo Tolstoy<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cWithout knowledge of Greek, there is no true education.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Giuseppe Ungaretti<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece is, and will remain for eternity, the inexhaustible source of the highest forms of thought.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Peter Ustinov<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe world would be much poorer without Greece.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Victor Hugo<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cIt is beautiful to descend from Greece \u2014 the land that gave light to humanity.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u201cThe world is an expanding Greece, and Greece is a contracting world.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Johann Joachim Winckelmann<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cIn ancient Greece lived men who were like gods.
To become a human being, one must first become Greek.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Vogue<\/i><\/b><\/p>

French archaeologist and diplomat<\/i><\/p>

\u201cWherever in the world Greeks may be, they remember their homeland.
Their soul is never exiled.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Voltaire<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cDefend Greece, for to her we owe our enlightenment, our sciences, our arts, and our virtues.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

(On the Greek language):<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThe Greek language ought to become the international language of Europe.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Johann Gottfried von Herder<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cJust as flowers adorn the earth and stars adorn the sky, so Greece adorns humanity.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

H. G. Wells<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece was rightly called the land of wonders.
Perhaps the greatest of these wonders is the way in which it remains faithful to its traditions while renewing its glorious past from century to century.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Alain Jupp\u00e9 (or an alternative attribution to a French statesman)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cGreece is the dazzling light.
Through her, all questions are resolved and all clouds disperse.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Aeschylus (through a later rendering)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cFor we, unlike the barbarians, never count the number of the enemy.
We always say: \u2018this number too is sufficient,\u2019 and we rush into battle.
It is enough that the Greeks be united.
Then we become invincible.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Constantine Cavafy<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cThere is no honor more precious than being Greek.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Ioannis Makriyannis<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cFrom beginning to end, all the beasts fight to devour us \u2014 and they cannot.
They eat from us, and still there is leaven left.\u201d<\/i><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

George Seferis (paraphrasing Makriyannis)<\/i><\/b><\/p>

\u201cSo far, we have all set out to devour Greece.
The level of this nourishment keeps falling.
Soon, she will begin to devour us.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voices Looking at Greece Not as proof. As recognition. Voices from the World on Greece and Greek Culture \u00a0 Anthony Eden Prime Minister of the United Kingdom \u201cIt was said in Athens two thousand years ago that the secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.The Greeks, through their \u2018No\u2019s\u2019, give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5460","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5547,"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5460\/revisions\/5547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greekablessingindisguise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}