As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or 'scholarship candidates,' but 'Fellows of another college.

Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.

The ancient Greeks have a knack of wrapping truths in myths.

Όταν κάποιος δήλωσε στον Διογένη ότι δεν έχει κλήση στην φιλοσοφία, τότε ο Διογένης του απάντησε: "Τότε τι ζεις, αφού δεν ενδιαφέρεσαι πώς να ζήσεις καλά;". (Τί οὖν ζῇς, εἰ τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν μὴ μέλει σοι;)

Περὶ δὲ τοῦ ποδαπὸς ἐκβῇ οὐ θυετε;

(Βλέποντας δυο γονείς να κάνουν θυσία για να αποκτήσουν αγόρι του είπε: "Και για το τι άνθρωπος θα γίνει δεν κάνετε θυσία;")