世上的奇异事物数不胜数，但没有什么比人更奇异。人能越过灰白的大海，在冬日狂风中破浪前行；他能翻耕大地，年复一年用犁铧翻动泥土；他能捕捉轻捷的鸟雀、野处的走兽、海中的鱼虾，凭他的机巧；他用种种技艺驯服山野的猛兽，给野马套上轭，给倔强的公牛戴上轭具；他学会了言语、思想和如风般迅疾的性情，也学会了在无法无天的城邦中共同生活，学会了躲避霜雪与严寒的箭矢。

——索福克勒斯

Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man; the storm-grey sea yields to his prows, and the huge crests bear him high; earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven with shining furrows where his plows have gone year after year, the timeless labor of stallions and oxen. The light birds, the wild beasts, the tribes of the sea, he snares with woven nets, and his arts tame the shaggy horse and the tireless mountain bull. He has learned speech and thought, swift as air, and the temper that builds cities, and how to shelter from the arrows of frost and rain.

—Sophocles