What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, art, and poetry, in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the universal relevance of Greek history and culture to individual human experiences.
Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the enduring interest that every person has in Greek history and culture, suggesting that this fascination arises from the personal connection each individual feels to the Grecian era. He proposes that everyone passes through their own 'Grecian period'—a time when the ideals, achievements, and explorations of ancient Greece resonate with their own life experiences, thereby illustrating the timeless influence of Greek civilization on humanity.
In practice
During a lecture on the influences of ancient civilizations on modern society.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.
Tradition is the illusion of permanance.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.
Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
Life is very, very simple and easy to understand, but we complicate it with the beliefs and ideas that we create.
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