The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient GreeksWho knew the ancient Greeks had it all figured out three thousand years ago? In The Beginning of All Wisdom, author Steve Stavropoulos has sifted through nearly every recorded ancient Greek text for the very best sayings, proverbs, and maxims by ancient Greek philosophers, tragedians, scientists, politicians, generals, and poets, from Plato and Pericles to Socrates and Sophocles. Here is practical advice on everyday problems as well as answers to deep moral questions: "Getting to know yourself is extremely difficult" (Thales). "Ignorance is a tough evil to conquer" (Sophocles). "We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing." (Euripides). Organized into 100 topics that cover all human experience -- anger, fear, good and evil, truth, prayer and hope, aging and old age, friendship, gossip, pain and sorrow, self-deception, war and peace, public speaking, democracy -- The Beginning of All Wisdom inspires, advises, and satisfies the urge to learn the best the ancient Greeks have to teach -- without having to read through a whole shelf of Loeb classics. |
Contents
Ambition | 1 |
Condemnation and Prejudice | 7 |
Equality | 14 |
Glory | 53 |
Habit | 61 |
Prayer and Hope | 65 |
HUMANITY | 75 |
EDUCATION AND LEARNING | 133 |
ARTS AND SCIENCES | 141 |
THE STATE | 159 |
Great Minds on the Greeks | 173 |
Time Line of Ancient Greece | 179 |
Suggested Reading | 199 |
Other editions - View all
The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks Steven Stavropoulos Limited preview - 2003 |
The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks Steven Stavropoulos Limited preview - 2008 |
The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks Steven Stavropoulos Limited preview - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus Aesop Agamemnon Agesilaus Agesilaus II Ajax Alexander Anaximander ancient Greek Antigone Aristophanes Aristotle army Athens Battle beauty Cambridge character courage danger death deeds democracy Democritus Demosthenes Diogenes Laƫrtius Diogenes of Sinope Discourses Electra Eminent Philosophers Enchiridion enemies Epictetus Eudemian Ethics Euripides everything evil fifth century B.C.E. fragment friends gods Greece Harvard University Press Heraclitus Herodotus Hesiod Histories Homer honor human Iliad injustice Isocrates justice Laƫrtius in Lives Laws letter to Demonicus Lives of Eminent Macedonia Menander mind mortal nature never Nicocles Nicomachean Ethics Odyssey Oedipus Peloponnesian Peloponnesian War Pericles Persian Phaedrus Plato Plato's Apology Plato's Phaedrus pleasure Plutarch's Sayings poetry poets Politics Prometheus Bound Protagoras Pythagoras quoted by Diogenes quoted in Plato's quoted in Plutarch's quoted in Thucydides Republic Rhetoric Sayings of Spartans shame Socrates Sophocles soul speech things thought Thucydides truth victory Virtues and Vices virtuous William Heinemann Ltd wisdom wise Xenophon Zeno