Benjamin Jowett Quotes

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

The real measure of our wealth is how much we'd be worth if we lost all our money.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit of doing them

Atheism or similar charges was not unusual among intellectuals, nor condemned by the masses. The prize-winning plays of Aristophanes were not merely atheist, but made fun of the gods and their prophets and oracles.

Истинската мярка за нашето богатство е колко бихме стрували, ако изгубехме всичките си пари." ~ Benjamin Jowett

Plato's dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice, or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. PLATO, Apology, trans. Benjamin Jowett

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.

The chief difference between us and them (the ancient Greeks) is, that they were slowly learning what we are in process of forgetting.

In Surprised by Joy Lewis notes how his father, Albert, was fond of telling anecdotes about Sir John Mahaffy, anecdotes which Lewis later (at Oxford) found attached to Benjamin Jowett. This, alas, is the fate of any great figure: to serve as a convenient magnet for stories or quotations that other people want to perpetuate, however inaccurately.

I have always felt a certain horror of political economists, since I heard one of them say that he feared the famine of 1848 in Ireland would not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.

HEART ACTION Do you practice what you preach? Become aware of the times when you are not living out the principles and kindnesses that you hold dear. Find fresh ways to show God's love and express your gifts and your compassion. Cambric tea was hot water and milk, with only a taste of tea in it, but little girls felt grown-up when their mothers let them drink cambric tea. LAURA INGALLS WILDER We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him. -EPHESIANS 4:14-15 God does not want us to remain spiritually immature. Many of the 30-to-40-year-old women I meet seem to dwell on how old they are. There doesn't seem to be much hope or time for them to make an impact in life. I always reassure them how beautiful the older decades are. Each season of life has so much to offer. Life becomes richer the more mature we become. Benjamin Jowett once wrote, Though I am growing old, I maintain that the best part is yet to come-the time when one may see things more dispassionately and know oneself and others more truly, and perhaps be able to do more, and in religion rest centered in a few simple truths. I do not want to ignore the other side, that one will not be able to see so well or walk so far or read so much. But there may be more peace within, more communications with God, more real light instead of distraction about many things, better relations with others, and fewer

The way to get things done is to not mind who gets the credit for doing them." – Benjamin Jowett, British theologian and classicist.

and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State" Plato Book IX, translated by Benjamin Jowett

Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educating their sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of their fathers. At their request, Nicias and Laches have accompanied them to see a man named Stesilaus fighting in heavy armour. The two fathers ask the two generals what they think of this exhibition, and whether they would advise that their sons should acquire the accomplishment. Nicias and Laches are quite willing to give their opinion; but they suggest that Socrates should be invited to take part in the consultation. He is a stranger to Lysimachus, but is afterwards recognised as the son of his old friend Sophroniscus, with whom he never had a difference to the hour of his death. Socrates is also known to Nicias, to whom he had introduced the excellent Damon, musician and sophist, as a tutor for his son, and to Laches, who had witnessed his heroic behaviour at the battle of Delium (compare Symp.). (Introduction by Benjamin Jowett)

Nicias, the tactician, is very much in favour of the new art [Stesilaus fighting in heavy armour], which he describes as the gymnastics of war—useful when the ranks are formed, and still more useful when they are broken; creating a general interest in military studies, and greatly adding to the appearance of the soldier in the field. Laches, the blunt warrior, is of opinion that such an art is not knowledge, and cannot be of any value, because the Lacedaemonians, those great masters of arms, neglect it. His own experience in actual service has taught him that these pretenders are useless and ridiculous. This man Stesilaus has been seen by him on board ship making a very sorry exhibition of himself. The possession of the art will make the coward rash, and subject the courageous, if he chance to make a slip, to invidious remarks. And now let Socrates be taken into counsel. As they differ he must decide. (Introduction by Benjamin Jowett)

Nicias is now appealed to; and in reply he offers a definition which he has heard from Socrates himself, to the effect that (1) 'Courage is intelligence.' Laches derides this; and Socrates enquires, 'What sort of intelligence?' to which Nicias replies, 'Intelligence of things terrible.' 'But every man knows the things to be dreaded in his own art.' 'No they do not. They may predict results, but cannot tell whether they are really terrible; only the courageous man can tell that.' Laches draws the inference that the courageous man is either a soothsayer or a god. Again, (2) in Nicias' way of speaking, the term 'courageous' must be denied to animals or children, because they do not know the danger. Against this inversion of the ordinary use of language Laches reclaims, but is in some degree mollified by a compliment to his own courage. Still, he does not like to see an Athenian statesman and general descending to sophistries of this sort. Socrates resumes the argument. Courage has been defined to be intelligence or knowledge of the terrible; and courage is not all virtue, but only one of the virtues. The terrible is in the future, and therefore the knowledge of the terrible is a knowledge of the future. But there can be no knowledge of future good or evil separated from a knowledge of the good and evil of the past or present; that is to say, of all good and evil. Courage, therefore, is the knowledge of good and evil generally. (Introduction by Benjamin Jowett)

The characters of Nicias and Laches are indicated by their opinions on the exhibition of the man fighting in heavy armour. The more enlightened Nicias is quite ready to accept the new art, which Laches treats with ridicule, seeming to think that this, or any other military question, may be settled by asking, 'What do the Lacedaemonians say?' The one is the thoughtful general, willing to avail himself of any discovery in the art of war (Aristoph. Aves); the other is the practical man, who relies on his own experience, and is the enemy of innovation; he can act but cannot speak, and is apt to lose his temper. It is to be noted that one of them is supposed to be a hearer of Socrates; the other is only acquainted with his actions. Laches is the admirer of the Dorian mode; and into his mouth the remark is put that there are some persons who, having never been taught, are better than those who have. Like a novice in the art of disputation, he is delighted with the hits of Socrates; and is disposed to be angry with the refinements of Nicias. [...] Gradually, and not without difficulty, Laches is made to pass on from the more popular to the more philosophical; it has never occurred to him that there was any other courage than that of the soldier; and only by an effort of the mind can he frame a general notion at all. No sooner has this general notion been formed than it evanesces before the dialectic of Socrates; and Nicias appears from the other side with the Socratic doctrine, that courage is knowledge. This is explained to mean knowledge of things terrible in the future. But Socrates denies that the knowledge of the future is separable from that of the past and present; in other words, true knowledge is not that of the soothsayer but of the philosopher. And all knowledge will thus be equivalent to all virtue—a position which elsewhere Socrates is not unwilling to admit, but which will not assist us in distinguishing the nature of courage. (Introduction by Benjamin Jowett)

Socrates proceeds: We might ask who are our teachers? But a better and more thorough way of examining the question will be to ask, 'What is Virtue?'—or rather, to restrict the enquiry to that part of virtue which is concerned with the use of weapons—'What is Courage?' Laches thinks that he knows this: (1) 'He is courageous who remains at his post.' But some nations fight flying, after the manner of Aeneas in Homer; or as the heavy-armed Spartans also did at the battle of Plataea. (2) Socrates wants a more general definition, not only of military courage, but of courage of all sorts, tried both amid pleasures and pains. Laches replies that this universal courage is endurance. But courage is a good thing, and mere endurance may be hurtful and injurious. Therefore (3) the element of intelligence must be added. But then again unintelligent endurance may often be more courageous than the intelligent, the bad than the good. (Introduction by Benjamin Jowett)