There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
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A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.
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The fundamental fact about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priests had said, Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought. The Greek said, All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought.
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The anthropologists are busy, indeed, and ready to transport us back into the savage forest where all human things have their beginnings but the seed never explains the flower.
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The fullness of life is in the hazards of life.
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When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
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When the mind withdraws into itself and dispenses with facts it makes only chaos.
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To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is being educated.
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Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.
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