W.K.C. Guthrie > Quotes

“Look at a strung bow lying on the ground or leaning against a wall. No movement is visible. To the eyes, it appears a static object, completely at rest. But in fact, a continuous tug-of-war is going on within it, as will become evident if the string is not strong enough, or is allowed to perish. The bow will immediately take advantage, snap it and leap to straighten itself, thus showing that each had been putting forth effort all the time. The harmonia was a dynamic one of vigorous and contrary motions neutralized by equilibrium and so unapparent.”
― W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume 1: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans

“Dodds sees even greater significance in ‘the powerful and disturbing eloquence that Plato has bestowed on Callicles’… This eloquence, adds Dodds, convinced the young Nietzsche, while Socrates’ reasoning left him cold. That is not surprising, but scarcely relevant. The apostle of the Herrenmoral, the Wille zur Macht, and Umwertung aller Werte did not need much convincing, for he was blood-brother to Callicles, whereas Socrates became for him, to quote Dodds again, ‘a fountain-head of false morality’.”
― W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume 3: The Fifth Century Enlightenment, Part 2: Socrates