Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" You don't overturn x-thousand years of patriarchy in a generation. "
Mary Beard
Patriarchy
Generation
Years
Related Quotes:
" I remember plastering the kitchen with Black Power pictures of Angela Davis. "
Mary Beard
Power
Angela
Black
" Nobody but an idiot would pretend that they had an error-proof way of choosing the 'best' out of hundreds of perfectly qualified applicants - not for university or for anything. "
Mary Beard
Idiot
University
Way
" English country towns are often seen as a cultural wasteland, but the more cut off you are, the more the need to create things, to make your own culture. "
Mary Beard
Own
Create
Need
" It's great fun being an academic because you have a certain licence to be a bit of a joker. "
Mary Beard
Great
Joker
You
" I knew that Trump was ghastly. I knew I'd vote for Hillary if I had a vote. "
Mary Beard
Trump
Knew
Hillary
" It's a bit naff, but there is something exciting about pulling a bit of pottery out of the ground that's 2,000 years old. "
Mary Beard
Out
About
Exciting
" In 1984, I returned to Newnham College at Cambridge University to teach after completing my Ph.D. there a couple of years earlier. Almost all of my colleagues in the university's classics department were men, and my office at the all-women's college was in the dorm. "
Mary Beard
Office
Men
Colleagues
" Beard's secret is always to be slightly on the edge but to pull back from disaster at the last minute. "
Mary Beard
Back
Always
Disaster
" One of the great things about history is that it sort of isn't a done deal - ever. The historical texts and the historical evidence that you use is always somehow giving you different answers because you're asking it different questions. "
Mary Beard
Giving
History
Questions
" I used to think that the British press were particularly awful to Cherie Blair. I think Blair's foreign policy was a complete disaster, but the British press, when they wanted to explain why Blair took unexpected moves, they did create Cherie as the power behind the throne. "
Mary Beard
Create
Power
Think
" I would summarise my politics very simply as the maverick left and proud. "
Mary Beard
Maverick
Would
Proud
" The gloomiest way of describing the ancient world is it is misogyny from A to Z, really. "
Mary Beard
Ancient
Really
Describing
" If talking about arts means being pretentious, a bit like being a wine critic, then I don't feel comfy with that. You can get a lot from paintings without getting mystical about brush strokes. "
Mary Beard
You
Feel
Without
" I was really good at Latin at school, and because I was good at it, I got more interested and got better at it. "
Mary Beard
Good
School
More
" There is no argument that I won't take seriously. "
Mary Beard
Argument
Seriously
Take
" If you ask me what is civilisation, it's little more than an act of faith. "
Mary Beard
Me
You
Ask
" Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.' "
Mary Beard
Side
Possible
Line
" There is no way, absolutely no way, that I would want people to stop reading the 'Odyssey.' But I want them to read it with their eyes open. To notice it and then to think what it says about us. "
Mary Beard
Reading
People
Eyes
" What interests me is the idea that classics is actually quite democratic. It isn't only the toff, upper-class subject it's often thought to be. Every generation enjoys rediscovering it. "
Mary Beard
Only
Idea
Generation
" You can hardly be a classicist and not be interested in theatre. "
Mary Beard
Interested
Hardly
You
" My mother took me to the British Museum aged five. I had thought people from the past weren't as good as we were, and then I saw the Elgin marbles. Suddenly, the world seemed more complicated. "
Mary Beard
Good
Mother
Past
" One person's barbarity is another person's civilisation. "
Mary Beard
Civilisation
Another
Person
" I loved 'Gladiator,' and I thought its depiction of gladiatorial combat, although it was an aggrandizing picture, was cleverly and expertly done. "
Mary Beard
Combat
Done
Thought
" Fate has it in for me to be an exhibit: that funny old lady from the telly. "
Mary Beard
Me
Old Lady
Old
" We are sold the idea of a refugee as a tiny child sitting crying, as a way of raising money, but elderly ladies and kids largely can't move. The demographic is mostly young men. "
Mary Beard
Men
Sitting
Way
" I was not much good as a waitress. "
Mary Beard
Much
Good
Waitress
" People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation. "
Mary Beard
Energy
People
Others
" If you say to a group of women professors, 'Close your eyes and think of a professor,' what they will see is a guy. I will. And I'll stop myself and think, 'Hey, hang on, what am I doing here?' "
Mary Beard
Group
You
Women
" In general, I never think it is a good idea to try to recreate past successes. You have to strike out on your own, for better or worse. "
Mary Beard
Past
Better
Good
" History is how we have learnt to think about ourselves. It's not as though the Greeks and Romans are static entities out there to be discovered and translated. We make them speak, we talk to them, and they inform what we say. "
Mary Beard
Speak
Say
Out