47 definitions
Athena (n.) loved both war and wisdom, so she picked for her city the temperate land most likely to breed men like herself.
Athens (n.) once stood alone, deserted by her allies, against the whole might of Atlantis, beat it back, and freed everyone inside the Pillars of Heracles.
Atlantis (n.) was an island larger than Libya and Asia together, lying beyond the Pillars of Heracles, whose royal power marched in insolence against all of Europe and Asia at once.
Atlantis (n.) sank in a single unbearable day and night of earthquake and flood, and the sea where it lay is still choked by a shallow mud of its remains.
Childhood (n.) lessons hold marvelously: what a boy heard with delight stays fixed like a picture with the colors burnt in, while yesterday's talk slips away.
Criticism (n.) is harshest where we know most: we swallow implausible talk about heaven gladly and pick apart every word said about mortals.
Flood (n.) spares the shepherds in the mountains and drowns the city people, which is why every civilization has to start its memory over from the illiterate.
Forgetting (n.) can swallow a whole people's greatness: the finest race of humankind lived in Attica, and its heirs never knew, because the survivors left no written record.
Genealogy (n.) recited by people who remember only one flood is no better than a nursery tale.
Greeks (n.) are forever children, the Egyptian priest tells Solon: not one old man among them, because their souls hold no learning made grey by time.
Human life (n.) is the hardest of all subjects to represent, if one hopes to satisfy what people already think of it.