“If we could save one word from Greek civilization, it would have to be aretē, excellence. The aristocrats gave themselves their name, the aristoi (the best). It is an open question whether anyone considered himself a member of the kakoi (the worst, the craven, the dumb shits). though this put-down prances everywhere in the surviving literature. …that shame—the paralyzing fear of being numbered among the kakoi—is the hidden engine that ran Greek life.”

—  Thomas Cahill

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.IV The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule

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Thomas Cahill 58
American scholar and writer 1940

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