Mary Beard Quotes
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There is no argument that I won't take seriously.
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We make two mistakes about the ancient world. One is to assume they were better than us - that, for instance, the ancient Olympics didn't involve money-making. The opposite mistake, and just as common, is to think our Olympics are much more civilised than ancient sporting competitions. Neither is true.
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I remember plastering the kitchen with Black Power pictures of Angela Davis.
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At 16, I got into local-education archaeology classes - you got to go to summer digs. It allowed me to be both intellectual and a bad girl with a wicked social life every evening!
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All religions throughout history have been concerned about - and have sometimes fought over - what it means to represent God, and they have found elegant, intriguing, and awkward ways to confront that dilemma.
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I loved 'Gladiator,' and I thought its depiction of gladiatorial combat, although it was an aggrandizing picture, was cleverly and expertly done.
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My mom was born before women had the vote in general elections in England.
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I'm not in the slightest wanting to attack the women's movement here. But I think that in popular, broadly left-wing, broadly feminist discourse, there is a tendency to just label discrimination against women - and embedded assumptions about them - as misogyny and think 'job done.'
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You don't overturn x-thousand years of patriarchy in a generation.
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People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation.
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The thing about being a university teacher is that you're fairly tolerant about young people saying things they shouldn't have said.
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You have to do what you feel comfortable with.
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Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl.
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I'm very interested in how people in the 19th century travelled to Greece.
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There's plenty of firm evidence for ethnic diversity in Roman Britain.
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However judicious academics may be - not like me - they are all taught to see through crap.
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The web is democratising and also the voice of people who don't think they have another outlet. And that voice can be punitive.
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What I find very interesting is, we're not enthralled by the ancient world, and we've escaped all kinds of ancient preconceptions and assumptions and prejudices. But, nevertheless, we still make that connection between authoritative speech and male speech.
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I have always hated fancy dress parties.
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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.
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I think you have to realize that most ancient warfare is really kind of hit and run, honestly. You go and you bash down the walls of some enemy 50 miles away and you take some slaves, you take some cattle, probably a bit of cash too, and then you say goodbye and go home and you probably do the same thing next year - or try to, or they do it to you.
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Beard's secret is always to be slightly on the edge but to pull back from disaster at the last minute.
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Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.'
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Fate has it in for me to be an exhibit: that funny old lady from the telly.