Mary Beard quotes

Mary Beard is a renowned English professor and classical scholar, celebrated for her expertise in Ancient Rome. Her books and television programs have made classical history accessible and engaging to a wide audience. She continues to shape the public’s understanding of the ancient world with her insightful research and commentary. Here are 50 of her quotes:

The web is democratising and also the voice of people who don't think they have another outlet. And that voice can be punitive.

Mary Beard

If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than women?

Mary Beard

Classics isn't about the ancient world. It's partly about the ancient world, but it's about our conversation. It's how we try to talk to antiquity.

Mary Beard

I don't want to see a world in which women can communicate on Twitter, but their actual voices are not heard.

Mary Beard

The building blocks of discrimination tend to be similar wherever you find them.

Mary Beard

It wasn't until I got to Cambridge that I discovered active discrimination against women.

Mary Beard

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

I receive something we might euphemistically call an 'inappropriately hostile' response - that is to say, more than fair criticism or even fair anger - every time I speak on radio or television.

Mary Beard

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.

Mary Beard

The reason why the British theatrical tradition is world-leading in Greek drama is because there is a flourishing tradition of people rethinking Greek tragedy.

Mary Beard

We have never escaped a certain male cultural desire for women's silence.

Mary Beard

Barring some sociopaths, probably, there is nobody who doesn't care about their appearance.

Mary Beard

My day job is working on Roman history and ancient Roman history.

Mary Beard

I'm exploring the long history of women, first of all, being silenced and, secondly, not being taken seriously in the political and public sphere. It's a call to action through understanding and through looking at ourselves again and trying to reformulate the whole question of women and power.

Mary Beard

I don't think that we are completely dominated by what we have inherited from the past, but it is the case that as far back as you can go - just to Homer, but also to the literature of Rome, the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance - what you will find is that women's voices are not taken seriously.

Mary Beard

My mom was born before women had the vote in general elections in England.

Mary Beard

However judicious academics may be - not like me - they are all taught to see through crap.

Mary Beard

You can hardly be a classicist and not be interested in theatre.

Mary Beard

You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure.

Mary Beard

When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice.

Mary Beard

One person's barbarity is another person's civilisation.

Mary Beard

Gender is a key marker of power and powerlessness. Most of the structures of how our world works are biased in terms of men.

Mary Beard