James Loeb Quotes

Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.

My education, according to the tradition of the Jesuit school which I attended, had been centered on the 'ancient humanities', and I was strongly attracted to the more literary branches.

Few of the great works of ancient Greek literature are easy reading.

All men begin their learning with Homer.

The models of ancient literature which are put into the hands of the young student, can hardly fail to imbue his mind with the principles of liberty, to inspire the liveliest patriotism, and to excite to noble and generous action, and are therefore particularly adapted to American youth.

The story of my grandmother is that of a French woman from the provinces who through her perseverance and thirst for knowledge worked her way up to become the head of a school. She belonged to a generation that didn't travel much. But she believed in Europe and she wanted Europe. And she read a lot - she knew mythology, literature and the classics very well. She passed that on to me, along with the conviction that you can earn your own position in society.

Aspiring writers should read the entire canon of literature that precedes them, back to the Greeks, up to the current issue of The Paris Review.

Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.

I had had a classical education prior to that.

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.

I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education.

I loved every minute of my three years majoring in classics at Berkeley.

I get letters from college kids who have read Percy Jackson when they were younger who tell me, 'I just passed my Classics exam.' The books are accurate enough that they can serve as a gateway to Homer and Virgil.

If we provide the young with a strong foundation, we can leave behind a legacy substantially greater than most are able to bequeath. As for the women, the old adage that you invest in a woman, you invest in a generation, still rings true today.

Education is a fundamental principle of what made America a success. We can't afford to throw any young people away.

Thus we hope to teach mythology not as a study, but as a relaxation from study; to give our work the charm of a story-book, yet by means of it to impart a knowledge of an important branch of education.

My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.

I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations.

The British system had requirements, including Latin. I'm not positive you ever had to know Greek, but there are certainly kinds of curricula where you had to know Greek too. I think in Britain there was the most mindless, repetitive sort of learning.

Tons of comedians have said, 'I grew up learning from Bill Cosby. He's great.' But that respect doesn't mean much to the young people. They like their ginger ale with hot sauce.

'The Odyssey' is the great tale, and I was really taken by 'The Iliad,' so I dig into those things, and when I was a kid I didn't. You've gotta have a certain level of understanding yourself before that stuff really starts to resonate.

Particularly for English people, Shakespeare is always at the forefront of both drama and the English language. He's always been there. I can't remember starting school and not learning about him.

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

I love Shakespeare and the Greeks - learned a lot studying them at one time.

I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology.