A Quote by Tim Blake Nelson

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.
As an undergraduate, I studied the Greek and Roman classics, and I went to graduate school in classics intending to work on the presentation of moral issues in various Greek and Roman tragedies.
After finishing the gymnasium in Muenchen with 9 years of Latin and 6 years of ancient Greek, history and philosophy, I decided to become a physicist. The great theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, an university colleague of my late father, advised me to begin with an apprenticeship in precision mechanics.
Philosophy is at its most engaged when it is impure. What is being recovered from the Ancient Greek model is not some lost idea of philosophy's pure essence, but the idea that philosophy is mixed up with everything else.
I am studying ancient civilizations, trying to find what happened to them, finding out why they went into a decline, why they died.
We the undersigned, intend to establish an instruction and training institution which differs from the common elementary schools principally in that it will embrace, outside of (in addition to) the general and elementary curriculum, all branches of the classical high school, which are necessary for a true Christian and scientific education, such as: Religion, the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French and English languages; History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, natural history, Introduction to Philosophy, Music, and Drawing.
My day job is working on Roman history and ancient Roman history.
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused."
Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.
Ennius was the father of Roman poetry, because he first introduced into Latin the Greek manner and in particular the hexameter metre.
Jack, my 16 year old, was in knots a couple of months back, studying for Latin. I said, "Mate, you've got no interest in Latin. You don't want to go into it after, so drop it." He said, "No, I can't. I'm going to get bullied at school because all my mates are in there." There's a prime example of why no one cooks at school. You're studying Latin, you've got no interest.
From my student days I found him a compelling and fascinating, though often puzzling, figure. It's a lifelong fascination now and I don't expect that to stop! His vision of God, God's faithfulness, God's purposes and so on is so much bigger and richer than almost any subsequent Christian thinker has ever managed. In addition, I have always loved ancient history, especially the history of the early Roman empire, and of course Paul fits right into that.
Would you trust the linguistic intuitions of someone who has been studying Latin or Greek for three days?
Personally, my interests are ancient history and ancient civilizations. In my own life, I'd like to go to places like Easter Island.
Greek myths, early Roman history, is configured around violence against women. And I think we need to get in there, get our hands dirty, face it, and see why and how it was.
When Edward Gibbon was writing about the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th century, he could argue that transportation hadn't changed since ancient times. An imperial messenger on the Roman roads could get from Rome to London even faster in A.D. 100 than in 1750. But by 1850, and even more obviously today, all of that has changed.
I rather doubt that life has a meaning. If I thought perhaps it did, and I wanted to find out what its meaning is, I don't imagine I'd ask someone whose credentials consist of a PhD in philosophy.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!