"To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Classical Greek spirit that distinguished it from all that had gone before. A tomb in Egypt and a theatre in Greece. The one comes to mind as naturally as the other. So was the world changing by the time the fifth century before Christ began in Athens." #QotD

Dancing female figurine, 2nd Century BC, Western Greek (Source: The British Museum)

"To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the [Classical] Greek spirit that distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction. The joy of life is written upon everything the Greeks left behind and they who leave it out of account fail to reckon with something that is of first importance in understanding how the Greek achievement came to pass in the world of antiquity. It is not a fact that jumps to the eye for the reason that their literature is marked as strongly by sorrow. The Greeks knew to the full how bitter life is as well as how sweet... But never, not in their darkest moments, do they lose their taste for life. It is always a wonder and a delight, the world a place of beauty, and they themselves rejoicing to be alive in it...
    "A tomb in Egypt and a theatre in Greece. The one comes to mind as naturally as the other. So was the world changing by the time the fifth century before Christ began in Athens."
          ~ Edith Hamilton, from her book The Greek Way .