Classical Greece

Classical Greece witnessed a period of remarkable intellectual and cultural growththat later became the main source of Western culture. Aristotle often wrote about the importance of cultural and intellectual life:

The activity of the mind is not only the highest...but also the most continuous: we are able to study continuously more easily than to perform any kind of action....It follows that the activity of our intelligence constitutes the complete happiness of man. In other words, a life guided by intelligence is the best and most pleasant for man, inasmuch as intelligence, above all else, is man. Consequently, this kind of life is the happiest.