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Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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THE MARK OF ATHENA BABY!!!!!!
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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Athena's jealousy made a monster of fair Medusa.
I often wonder what beauty my own demons have destroyed.
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Nichole McElhaney (Poetry For Celestial Nymphs and Wayward Witches)
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It's one of my inventions-a shampoo," Athena explained. "Anyway, I didn't know it would do"-she gestured toward the snakes-"that.
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Joan Holub (Athena the Brain (Goddess Girls, #1))
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Usually I give demigods something simple like a shopping trip, singing a funny song, that sort of thing. After all those labors I had to complete for my evil cousin Eurystheus, well...I don't want to be that guy, you know?
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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If your mind and spirit are directed to your task, everything else will follow. Relax.” “But focus,” said Hermes. “Relaxation without focus leads to failure.” “Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,” said Athena. “So concentrate . . .” said Perseus. “Exactly.” “. . . but calmly?” “Concentrate calmly. You have it.
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Stephen Fry (Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #2))
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In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.1 To end the cycle of violence that began with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, Athena created a court of justice to try Orestes, thereby installing the rule of law in lieu of the reign of vengeance.2 Recall also the biblical Deborah (from the Book of Judges).3 She was at the same time prophet, judge, and military leader. This triple-headed authority was exercised by only two other Israelites, both men: Moses and Samuel. People came from far and wide to seek Deborah’s judgment. According to the rabbis, Deborah was independently wealthy; thus she could afford to work pro bono.4 Even if its members knew nothing of Athena and Deborah, the U.S. legal establishment resisted admitting women into its ranks far too long.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg (My Own Words)
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I imagined her springing from her father’s head, fully formed, like Athena.
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Julia Drake (The Last True Poets of the Sea)
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My father, that silhouette, a form comprised of all I did not
know, a shape filled with rain. "Whenever I asked, she'd say, 'You
had no father. I'm your father. You sprang full-blown from my
forehead, like Athena.
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Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
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I am the interpretation of the prophet
I am the artist in the coffin
I am the brave flag stained with blood
I am the wounds overcome
I am the dream refusing to sleep
I am the bare-breasted voice of liberty
I am the comic the insult and the laugh
I am the right the middle and the left
I am the poached eggs in the sky
I am the Parisian streets at night
I am the dance that swings till dawn
I am the grass on the greener lawn
I am the respectful neighbour and the graceful man
I am the encouraging smile and the helping hand
I am the straight back and the lifted chin
I am the tender heart and the will to win
I am the rainbow in rain
I am the human who won’t die in vain
I am Athena of Greek mythology
I am the religion that praises equality
I am the woman of stealth and affection
I am the man of value and compassion
I am the wild horse ploughing through
I am the shoulder to lean onto
I am the Muslim the Jew and the Christian
I am the Dane the French and the Palestinian
I am the straight the square and the round
I am the white the black and the brown
I am the free speech and the free press
I am the freedom to express
I will die for my right to be all the above here mentioned
And should threat encounter I’ll pull my pencil
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Mie Hansson (Where Pain Thrives)
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Now they made all secure in the fast black ship,
and, setting out the wine bowls all a-brim,
they made libation to the gods,
the undying, the ever-new,
most of all to the grey-eyed daughter of Zeus.
And the prow sheared through the night into the dawn.
(Translation by Robert Fitzgerald 1961)
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Homer (The Odyssey)
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Relaxation without focus leads to failure.” “Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,” said Athena.
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Stephen Fry (Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #2))
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The influence of Greek art and literature became so powerful in Rome that ancient Roman deities were changed to resemble the corresponding Greek gods, and were considered to be the same. Most of them, however, in Rome had Roman names. These were Jupiter (Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune (Poseidon), Vesta (Hestia), Mars (Ares), Minerva (Athena), Venus (Aphrodite), Mercury (Hermes), Diana (Artemis), Vulcan or Mulciber (Hephaestus), Ceres (Demeter).
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Edith Hamilton (Mythology)
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I transformed Medusa," Athena continued, "so that she would have protection against all those who would try to harm her."
"That's bullshit. You didn't give her a choice, did you?" Lore bit back. "And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die."
"No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales," Athena said. "They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle's assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?
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Alexandra Bracken (Lore)
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There is a small wooden viewing tower, and pamphlets from the State of Ohio, but they focus on facts—for instance, the Serpent Mound is as long as four football fields—not on meaning. In The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen, a Native poet, mythologist, and scholar, explains that Serpent Woman was one of the names of the quintessential original spirit “that pervades everything, that is capable of powerful song and radiant movement, and that moves in and out of the mind…she is both Mother and Father to all people and all creatures. She is the only creator of thought, and thought precedes creation.”
In Western mythology, she might be compared to Medusa, the serpent-haired Greek goddess whose name means Knowing Woman or Protectress. She once was all-powerful—until patriarchy came along in the form of a mythic young man who chopped off her head. He was told to do this by Athena, who sprang full-blown from the mind of her father, Zeus—a goddess thought up by patriarchy and therefore motherless. There is history in what is dismissed as prehistory.
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Gloria Steinem (My Life on the Road)
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Hera said that Hephaestus was the one who made the lovely chariots for Zeus, Poseidon & Hades. Also the one for Helios, the Sun God. And if she married him, he might make one for her too. But she did not tell the young Goddess of Love why none of the Goddesses wanted to marry him in the first instance & that he was ugly & a cripple. She also omitted to tell her that Hephaestus, having created the first woman, Pandora, from clay, had neither the patience nor the inclination to woo & pamper women, let alone put up with the changing moods of the young lovely Goddesses at Olympus. And that even the warlike & down-to-earth Athena had dropped him like a ton of bricks.
As Aphrodite did not appear to have any choices, she nodded her head & thus accepted Hera as her future mother-in-law. And this explains one of the greatest mysteries in Greek Mythology: why the loveliest & most beautiful of the Goddesses would agree to marry the ugliest of the Gods. For this mismatch would not have happened if not for Hera.
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Nicholas Chong
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I’d go up to her house and lie on the carpet beside the long low bookshelves. My usual company was an edition of Aesop’s Fables and, perhaps my favorite, Bulfinch’s Mythology. I would leaf through the pages, pausing only to crack a few nuts while I absorbed accounts of flying horses, intricate labyrinths, and serpent-haired Gorgons who turned mortals to stone. I was in awe of Odysseus, and liked Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, and Athena well enough, but the deity I admired most had to be Hephaestus: the ugly god of fire, volcanoes, blacksmiths, and carpenters, the god of tinkerers. I was proud of being able to spell his Greek name, and of knowing that his Roman name, Vulcan, was used for the home planet of Spock from Star Trek. The fundamental premise of the Greco-Roman pantheon always stuck with me. Up at the summit of some mountain there was this gang of gods and goddesses who spent most of their infinite existence fighting with each other and spying on the business of humanity. Occasionally, when they noticed something that intrigued or disturbed them, they disguised themselves, as lambs and swans and lions, and descended the slopes of Olympus to investigate and meddle.
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Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
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Gods in The Lost Hero Aeolus The Greek god of the winds. Roman form: Aeolus Aphrodite The Greek goddess of love and beauty. She was married to Hephaestus, but she loved Ares, the god of war. Roman form: Venus Apollo The Greek god of the sun, prophecy, music, and healing; the son of Zeus, and the twin of Artemis. Roman form: Apollo Ares The Greek god of war; the son of Zeus and Hera, and half brother to Athena. Roman form: Mars Artemis The Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon; the daughter of Zeus and the twin of Apollo. Roman form: Diana Boreas The Greek god of the north wind, one of the four directional anemoi (wind gods); the god of winter; father of Khione. Roman form: Aquilon Demeter The Greek goddess of agriculture, a daughter of the Titans Rhea and Kronos. Roman form: Ceres Dionysus The Greek god of wine; the son of Zeus. Roman form: Bacchus Gaea The Greek personification of Earth. Roman form: Terra Hades According to Greek mythology, ruler of the Underworld and god of the dead. Roman form: Pluto Hecate The Greek goddess of magic; the only child of the Titans Perses and Asteria. Roman form: Trivia Hephaestus The Greek god of fire and crafts and of blacksmiths; the son of Zeus and Hera, and married to Aphrodite. Roman form: Vulcan Hera The Greek goddess of marriage; Zeus’s wife and sister. Roman form: Juno Hermes The Greek god of travelers, communication, and thieves; son of Zeus. Roman form: Mercury Hypnos The Greek god of sleep; the (fatherless) son of Nyx (Night) and brother of Thanatos (Death). Roman form: Somnus Iris The Greek goddess of the rainbow, and a messenger of the gods; the daughter of Thaumas and Electra. Roman form: Iris Janus The Roman god of gates, doors, and doorways, as well as beginnings and endings. Khione The Greek goddess of snow; daughter of Boreas Notus The Greek god of the south wind, one of the four directional anemoi (wind gods). Roman form: Favonius Ouranos The Greek personification of the sky. Roman form: Uranus Pan The Greek god of the wild; the son of Hermes. Roman form: Faunus Pompona The Roman goddess of plenty Poseidon The Greek god of the sea; son of the Titans Kronos and Rhea, and brother of Zeus and Hades. Roman form: Neptune Zeus The Greek god of the sky and king of the gods. Roman form: Jupiter
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Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
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Hymn to Athena “I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. From his awful head wise Zeus himself bare her arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed.” —Homer
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Robert Carlson (Greek Mythology: A Concise Guide)
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But, at the end of the day,
if you ever think you were wrong about it all,
I'm here where I have always been:
sitting by the harbor, waiting for you to walk to me again.
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Athena Violante (The ones who could never stay)
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The decapitation of Medusa by the Greek hero Perseus, assisted by the patriarchalized Goddess Athena, was painted on pottery, carved as bas reliefs on temples, described in Greek verse, and propagated in myths and legends. Her murder functioned as a cautionary tale defining the ultimate consequence of manifesting female sovereignty.
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Joan Marler (Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom)
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When Medusa was killed, her powers were plundered. She was pregnant with her son Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus who were born from her severed neck. Pegasus was immediately captured and made to bring Zeus Medusa's roar and the flash of her eyes, which he used as his thunder and lightning. In book three of the Bibliotheca (3.10.3) Apollodorus describes how Athena drains the blood from Medusa's veins and gives it to Asclepius, Greek god of medicine and healing. The blood from her left side is deadly poisonous, while the blood from her right side brings life. Asclepius's powers to cure and raise the dead were thereby stolen from Medusa.
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Joan Marler (Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom)
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Hymn to Athena “I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. From his awful head wise Zeus himself bare her arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed.
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Robert Carlson (Greek Mythology: A Concise Guide)
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In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.
”
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg (My Own Words)
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In Western mythology, she might be compared to Medusa, the serpent-haired Greek goddess whose name means Knowing Woman or Protectress. She once was all-powerful—until patriarchy came along in the form of a mythic young man who chopped off her head. He was told to do this by Athena, who sprang full-blown from the mind of her father, Zeus—a goddess thought up by patriarchy and therefore motherless. There is history in what is dismissed as prehistory In
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Gloria Steinem (My Life on the Road)
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Medusa was revered and exalted by the Libyan Amazons as the Queen Serpent Goddess of female wisdom. I think all the ramifications of the meaning of this title remain mysterious because female wisdom is denied in patriarchy and women must search beneath the hardened layers of conditioning to find our true heritage. The most common story of Medusa, whose name from ancient Greek medo means “to protect, to rule over” and “the ruling one,” tells the aggrandized patriarchal tale of jealousy, betrayal, rape and murder. In this myth the goddess is split into her “good” and “bad” aspects forcing her to appear to fight against herself—Athena, the daughter born from the forehead of her father, created in alignment with patriarchy as the male myth makers wished, and Medusa, the mortal Gorgon who was punished by Athena. The goddess punishes herself—a very strange, confused and twisted story indeed.
The Classical Greek myths are all variations on these same themes. Demonizing the creative female powers of the cosmos became a high priority for the male-dominated violent hierarchy that sought to replace the more peaceful woman-centered cultures of the Neolithic. In the above-mentioned variation she is blamed for Poseidon raping her, the burden of which still plays out very commonly today, not only in the shame women feel when men rape them but also in the persistent blame that it is a woman’s fault if a man rapes her. Classical Greek mythology is the embodiment of both rape culture and a deep-seated misogyny that are the bedrock of Western civilization. I believe that the challenge in dealing with these violent woman-hating mythologies is to learn what lies at the core of these anti-woman and anti-life myths, for the Medusa Archimage is also cross-cultural.
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Leslene della-Madre (Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom)