Oh, for the days of Socrates!

Reading a musty book about ancient Greece found in a second hand bookshop - a book written by Edith Hamilton way back in 1930. When she comes to discuss the life of the mind in ancient Greece she says the following:

Never, not in the brightest days of the Renaissance, has learning appeared in such a radiant light as it did to the gay young men of imperial Athens...

Socrates has but to enter a gymnasium: exercise, games, are forgotten. A crowd of ardent young men surround him. Tell us this. Teach us that, they clamour. What is Friendship? What is Justice? We will not let you off, Socrates. The truth - we want the truth. "What delight," they say to each other, "To hear wise men tak!" "Egypt and Phoenicia love money," Plato remarks in a discussion on how nations differ. "The special characteristic of our part of the world is the love of knowledge."

Oh, how times have changed!