Thomas Cahill Quotes

59 Sourced Quotes

Human beings never know more than a part, as "through a glass darkly"; and all knowledge comes to us in pieces.

Thomas Cahill
For me, the historian's principal task should be to raise the dead to life.

Thomas Cahill
If we are to be saved, it will not be by Romans but by saints.

Thomas Cahill
This hamartia (tragic flaw, the same word that early Christians will use for "sin," especially for original sin, the sin we are born with, the sin beyond any human being's control) is not incidental to Oedipus but is, rather, essential to his admirable character. He is strong, courageous, self-possessed, taking charge and striding boldly where others fear to go—the very qualities that foretell his undoing.

Thomas Cahill
Lacking cities, Ireland didn't quite see the point of bishops, and gradually these were replaced in importance by abbots and—in a development that would make any self-respecting Roman's blood run cold—abbesses.

Thomas Cahill
As... Greek philosophy split into scores of yip-yapping schools, the Greeks became more and more puzzled. They had lost their way philosophically—and the Romans, who were just aping them, had nothing original to propose by way of saving them all from their dilemmas.

Thomas Cahill
When Donald Rumsfeld, a practical imperialist if ever there was one, took over the Pentagon, he commissioned a study of how ancient empires maintained their hegemony. Might he more profitably study how they lost all they had gained?

Thomas Cahill
No longer did philosophers aspire to the deep spiritual insights and broad moral vision of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They divided into conflicting schools and wandered through the Greco-Roman world as permanent immigrants, picking up tutoring jobs as they could.... the upshot was a debased intellectual climate, fragmented and agnostic.

Thomas Cahill
The high abbesses... had the power to heal,... almost certainly heard confessions, probably ordained clergy, and may even have celebrated Mass.

Thomas Cahill